A MR 230312014 en

A LAND TITLE
IS NOT ENOUGH
ENsuRINg sustAINAblE lANd

REstItutIoN IN ColoMbIA
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Amnesty International 2014
Index: AMR 23/031/2014 English
Original language: English
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Cover photo: A plot of land in El Carpintero, Cabuyaro
Municipality, Meta Department. Most of the peasant farmers
from El Carpintero were forced to flee their homes following
a spate of killings and forced disappearances of community
members carried out by paramilitary groups in the late 1990s.
Many of them have tirelessly sought for years to return to their
lands in safety. The Victims and Land Restitution Law (Law
1448), which came into force in 2012, has given them renewed
hope that their dream could finally become a reality.
Corporacin Claretiana Norman Prez Bello Centro
Claretiano de Investigacin y Educacin Popular
amnesty.org
CONTENTS
GLOSSARY
METHODOLOGY
1. INTRODUCTION
2. THE INTERNAL ARMED CONFLICT
Forced Displacement and the Illegal Acquisition of Land

3. LAND REFORM AND RESTITUTION: THE LEGAL FRAMEWORK
11
15
Land Reform
18
Land Restitution
19
Territorial Rights for Indigenous and Afro-Descendant Communities
21
4. LAW 1448 OF 2011: THE VICTIMS AND LAND RESTITUTION LAW
23
The Institutional Framework of Law 1448
23
Territorial Restitution for Indigenous and Afro-Descendant Communities
26
5. THE OBSTACLES TO SUSTAINABLE LAND RESTITUTION FOR ALL VICTIMS
29
Excluding Certain Categories of Victims
31
Lack of Security Guarantees and the Need for Comprehensive Protection
32
Failure to Ensure Sustainable Land Restitution
38
Lack of Institutional Co-ordination and Capacity
43
Ongoing Gender Discrimination
47
The Restitution of Indigenous and Afro-Descendant Territories
49
Failing to Guarantee the Right to Non-Repetition, Including Impunity
51
6. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
55
A LAND TITLE IS NOT ENOUGH:

ENSURING SUSTAINABLE LAND RESTITUTION IN COLOMBIA
GLOSSARY
Bacrim
CEDAW
CERREM
CI2RT
CNRR
COLR
ELN
ENS
FARC
ICCPR
ICESCR
IGAC
IHL
ILO
INCODER
INCORA
NGO
ONIC
PCN
RTDAF
RUPTA
SNARIV
UAF
UARIV
UDHR
UNDP
UNP
URT
Criminal gangs (bandas criminales)

Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against
Women
Committees on Risk Evaluation and Recommendation of Measures
(Comits de Evaluacin de Riesgos y Recomendacin de Medidas)
Integrated Intelligence Centre for Land Restitution (Centro Integrado de
Inteligencia para la Restitucin de Tierras)
National Commission of Reparation and Reconciliation (Comisin Nacional
de Reparacin y Reconciliacin)
Local Land Restitution Operative Committees (Comits Locales de
Restitucin de Tierras)
National Liberation Army (Ejrcito de Liberacin Nacional)
National Trade Union School (Escuela Nacional Sindical)
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias
de Colombia)
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
Agustn Codazzi Geographical Institute (Instituto Geogrfico Agustn
Codazzi)
International humanitarian law
International Labour Organization
Colombian Institute of Rural Development (Instituto Colombiano de
Desarrollo Rural)
Colombian Institute of Agrarian Reform (Instituto Colombiano de la
Reforma Agraria)
Non-governmental organization
National Indigenous Organization of Colombia (Organizacin Nacional
Indgena de Colombia)
Process of Black Communities (Proceso de Comunidades Negras)
Register of Forcibly Dispossessed and Abandoned Lands (Registro de
Tierras Despojadas y Abandonadas Forzosamente)
Single Register of Abandoned Rural Properties and Territories (Registro
nico de Predios y Territorios Abandonados)
National System for the Attention and Full Reparation of Victims (Sistema
Nacional de Atencin y Reparacin Integral a las Vctimas)
Family Agricultural Unit (Unidad Agrcola Familiar)
Unit for Attention and Reparation of Victims (Unidad para la Atencin y
Reparacin Integral a las Vctimas)
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
United Nations Development Programme
National Protection Unit (Unidad Nacional de Proteccin)
Land Restitution Unit (Unidad de Restitucin de Tierras)
Amnesty International November 2014
Index: AMR 23/031/2014

METHODOLOGY
This report is the culmination of research conducted in Colombia in 2013 and 2014. For the
purposes of this study, Amnesty International delegates visited several regions of the country,
including the departments of Cauca, Valle del Cauca, Sucre, Cesar, Magdalena, Atlntico and
Meta, as well as the capital Bogot. The delegates met with a cross-section of Colombian
society in both the capital Bogot and in the regions, including land claimants and their
representatives; victims of human rights abuses and violations; representatives of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) working on human rights, including land issues; social
and community activists; church organizations; academics; lawyers; Afro-descendant,
Indigenous, peasant farmer and womens organizations; and the Office in Colombia of the UN
High Commissioner for Human Rights.
Amnesty International delegates also held meetings in Colombia with national and regional
state institutions, including the Land Restitution Unit and the Unit for Attention and
Reparation of Victims, both in Bogot and the regions; the Interior Ministrys National
Protection Unit; the national and regional offices of the Human Rights Ombudsman; the
Colombian Institute of Rural Development; the Office of the Procurator General; the Office of
the Comptroller General; the National Centre of Historic Memory; the Office of the Attorney
General; the Agustn Codazzi Geographical Institute; the Superior Council of the Judiciary;
and the Superintendence of Notaries and Registry Offices. Amnesty International delegates
also met with several land restitution judges working in the regions covered by this report.
Amnesty International would like to thank all those who gave their time to talk to the
organizations delegates. In particular, Amnesty International thanks the land claimants and
victims of forced displacement, and the human rights NGOs accompanying them, who shared
their experiences courageously, despite the risks involved. Some of their stories appear in this
report.
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Index: AMR 23/031/2014

1. INTRODUCTION
The violent struggle to control territory for economic, military and political reasons, coupled
with high levels of rural poverty and the high concentration of land ownership among
relatively few owners, has been one of the root causes of Colombias 50-year-old internal
armed conflict. There has been an insatiable appetite amongst numerous actors in Colombia
to gain and maintain control over land deemed critical to their varying interests. 1 These
actors include the security forces and paramilitaries (either acting alone or in collusion with
each other), guerrilla groups, some political and business elites in the regions, drug
traffickers and other criminal enterprises.
This has had a devastating impact on the millions of Colombians who traditionally rely on
land for their survival, especially Indigenous, Afro-descendant and peasant farmer
communities.2 It has led to the forced displacement of almost 6 million people3 nearly 13%
of Colombias population and one of the highest displacement levels in the world and the
illegal acquisition of around 8 million hectares of land,4 some 14% of Colombias territory.
Most of those forcibly displaced in the course of the conflict had an association with the land
from which they were forced to flee, in that they owned it or had customary rights over it,
worked on it individually or communally, or had tenure or possession over it. 5
Large-scale infrastructure developments and the agro-industrial, agro-fuel and extractive
industries, both domestic and international, have frequently benefited from forced
displacement and land grabs, through the removal of communities from strategic areas
earmarked for exploitation. This displacement has been primarily carried out by paramilitaries
often operating in collusion with state security forces. Guerrilla forces have also threatened
and killed civilians in the context of exploiting particular economic resources, often driving
people from their lands as a consequence. 6
Displaced communities face a multitude of challenges, not least the loss of their homes and
the land on which they lived and worked. Forced displacement and the illegal acquisition of
land have involved a plethora of human rights abuses and violations of international
humanitarian law, which have often been designed to sow terror to encourage individuals and
even whole communities to flee.7 Such abuses include killings, rape and other forms of
torture, enforced disappearances, death threats and abductions.
The need to control territory, and the imposition of economic interests, has at times required
the compliance of local populations. This is why those who have tried to make visible these
abuses or who seek justice for such crimes, such as trade unionists, human rights defenders,
land activists and community leaders, have been targeted for attack. 8
The failure to bring to justice those suspected of criminal responsibility for forced
displacement and the illegal acquisition of land, as well as for related human rights abuses
and violations, has contributed to prolonging the conflict, since past and future perpetrators
Index: AMR 23/031/2014

can remain confident that they will not be held to account for their actions. Impunity for
human rights abuses and violations committed in the context of the Colombian armed
conflict, regardless of the perpetrator, remains exceedingly high. 9
Over the years, some Colombian governments have, with varying degrees of commitment,
sought to address, at least partly, the vexed issue of land ownership and rural inequality. Yet
their attempts to create and promote land reform programmes, including efforts to formalize
land ownership, have all failed. Past attempts to promote limited land reform were frequently
implemented in the wake of social protest. However, increased social mobilization was in turn
met with waves of repression involving the killings of social activists, mostly by paramilitaries,
the security forces, and powerful landowning sectors. 10 This violence partly explains why such
land reform efforts failed and why levels of land concentration have remained so high.
While a full analysis of the reasons for the failure of land reform in Colombia is beyond the
scope of this study, it is clear that the armed conflict has played a direct role in forcibly
displacing and dispossessing millions of Colombians, thereby exacerbating the problems
associated with land ownership and rural inequality. The issue of land ownership has been
particularly complex and difficult to resolve because of the informality of land tenure in
Colombia. Fewer than half of peasant farmers have legal titles to their lands, and most land
is sold and bought informally.11 This has been exacerbated by a lack of complete or accurate
land registers.
Women in particular have historically lacked ownership of land, despite actively participating
in the rural economy together with men, and they continue to face numerous challenges in
their efforts to enjoy equal access to land. This report also argues for a gender perspective in
land restitution to ensure that women and female-headed households have equal enjoyment
of land and access to the land restitution process.
The Victims and Land Restitution Law (Law 1448), an initiative promoted by President Juan
Manuel Santos, and which came into force in January 2012, is the latest effort to settle
issues around the formalization of land ownership, land restitution and, more generally, of
reparation for the victims of the conflict.
The success of the land restitution process will, however, largely depend on whether the
Colombian authorities, through Law 1448, are able to guarantee the right of victims of the
armed conflict to an effective remedy, a right which lies at the core of international human
rights law, and which includes adequate, effective and prompt reparation, including land
restitution, for harm suffered.12
Land claimants will only be able to enjoy their right to an effective remedy if the authorities
can stem the threats against and killings of land claimants and those human rights defenders
and land activists accompanying them; ensure that those who return to their lands can
sustain themselves economically, with security guarantees and the right to political
participation; and effectively address impunity for those suspected of criminal responsibility
in forced displacement and associated human rights violations and abuses.
This report is published at a critical time in Colombias history when the government and
the countrys main guerrilla group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas
Index: AMR 23/031/2014

Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia, FARC) are engaged in talks designed to put a

definitive end to the countrys 50-year-old armed conflict. There is a general consensus that
these latest negotiations, which have been ongoing since 2012, offer the best chance in over
a decade to end the hostilities. The issue of land is one of the central components of the
negotiations, and the success or failure of the talks could ultimately rest on the ability of the
Colombian state to effectively return land to those victims of the conflict who were forced to
abandon or were dispossessed of their lands and homes.
This report therefore examines what progress the authorities have made in implementing the
land restitution elements of Law 1448 to ensure that the right of land claimants to an
effective remedy is guaranteed. It seeks to place the current land restitution process in the
context of previous attempts by Colombian governments to resolve the problems associated
with the unequal distribution of land and rural poverty. The report also provides a summary of
the national and international legal human rights framework that should be underpinning the
efforts of the Colombian state to return illegally acquired land to its rightful occupants and
examines in detail the many obstacles that land claimants are still facing in their struggle to
return home in a sustainable manner.
The report ends with a comprehensive series of recommendations calling on the Colombian
authorities to put in place effective measures to ensure that land claimants and others
involved in the land restitution process are effectively protected; that victims can return
home in a way that is economically sustainable; that the rights of women claimants and of
Indigenous and Afro-descendant communities are upheld; and that the right of victims of the
conflict to guarantees of non-repetition are secured by ensuring that those suspected of
criminal responsibility for human rights abuses and violations, including forced
displacement, are held to account.
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2. THE INTERNAL ARMED CONFLICT

We have never lived in peace We have always
lived with violence, and we always live with this
anxiety, and we have always lived with the armed
conflict.
Land claimant from Meta Department, December 2013
Colombias ongoing internal armed conflict has pitted the security forces and paramilitaries
against guerrilla groups for around 50 years. It has been marked by extraordinary levels of
human rights abuses and violations of international humanitarian law (IHL), carried out by all
the parties, with civilians by far the main victims. Those most affected by the violence have
been Indigenous People and Afro-descendant and peasant farmer communities, as well as
human rights defenders, community leaders and trade unionists. 13
According to the 2013 report Basta Ya! Memorias de Guerra y Dignidad published by the
governments National Centre of Historic Memory (Centro Nacional de Memoria Histrica),
between 1985 and 2012 there were almost 220,000 conflict-related killings 80% of which
were of civilians and at least 25,000 enforced disappearances, mostly carried out by the
security forces and paramilitary groups, either acting alone or in collusion with each other.
According to the report, some 27,000 people were kidnapped between 1970 and 2010,
mostly by guerrilla groups, and more than 5 million people were forcibly displaced between
1985 and 2012. The conflict has also been marked by the use of child soldiers, both by
paramilitaries and guerrilla groups, and by widespread sexual violence, mostly against women
and girls.14 The government has officially recognized some 6.4 million victims of the conflict,
almost half of whom are women. Forcibly displaced persons account for more than 85% of
the total number of conflict-related victims.15
Human rights defenders, including community leaders, also continue to face grave dangers.
According to the human rights non-governmental organization (NGO) Somos Defensores,
more than 70 human rights defenders were killed and over 200 threatened in 2013 alone,16
while at least 30 human rights defenders were killed and over 100 threatened in the first six
months of 2014.17 Indigenous and Afro-descendant activists, land activists and community
leaders were among the victims. According to the Colombian NGO National Trade Union
School (Escuela Nacional Sindical, ENS), at least 27 members of trade unions were also
killed and 188 threatened in 2013.18
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10

These attacks, as well as the theft of sensitive information, ongoing death threats and the
misuse of the legal system to bring bogus charges against human rights defenders,
undermine the work of human rights organizations and contribute towards creating a climate
of fear.19 The governments various physical protection programmes for human rights
defenders and other groups at risk of attack have saved lives. However, the best form of
protection remains elusive; namely a demonstrated commitment by the Colombian state that
it will not tolerate human rights abuses and violations, and that it has the political will to
bring to trial those suspected of criminal responsibility in such crimes.
The ongoing peace process taking place in Havana, Cuba, between the government and the
FARC offers the best chance in over a decade to put an end to the hostilities. It holds out the
hope that most, if not all, of the human rights abuses and violations that have characterized
the conflict will be consigned to the past. However, human rights must be a central
component of the peace negotiations. An effective and long-lasting peace will not be possible
without a verifiable commitment from both sides in the conflict to fully respect human rights
and IHL, and to guarantee the right of victims of the armed conflict to truth, justice and
reparation.
THE PARTIES TO THE ARMED CONFLICT

The armed forces
There have been numerous reports, including from Amnesty International, documenting the direct
responsibility of members of the security forces in human rights violations and their collusion with
paramilitary groups.20 These abuses, including extrajudicial executions, continue today, albeit to a lesser
degree than in previous years. The Office of the Attorney General has registered more than 4,000 extrajudicial
executions carried out by the security forces going back several decades. 21
Paramilitary groups
Paramilitaries have their origin in civilian self-defence groups created by the army in the 1970s and 1980s
to act as auxiliaries during counter-insurgency operations.22 Although they were outlawed in 1989 because of
concerns about serious human rights violations, these groups continued to grow in the 1990s and early 2000s
and to operate in close co-ordination with the security forces. The main role of paramilitaries was to carry out
the dirty war tactics of the armed forces counter-insurgency strategy, characterized by systematic and
widespread violations of human rights. Growing international scrutiny of human rights violations committed
by the security forces prompted the Colombian armed forces to delegate such tactics to auxiliaries, namely the
paramilitaries. Despite the fact that paramilitaries supposedly demobilized in a government-sponsored
programme that began in 2005, such groups continue to operate, sometimes in collusion with or with the
consent of some sectors of the security forces. The government refers to such groups as criminal gangs
(bandas criminales, or Bacrim) and does not acknowledge them as parties to the conflict.
Guerrilla groups
The first of the guerrilla groups emerged in the 1950s. Armed groups linked to the Communist and Liberal
parties were driven into remote parts of the country and were the nucleus of the largest guerrilla group, the
FARC. Over the decades, the guerrillas created extensive strongholds, principally in rural areas, but in recent
years they have been driven back. Guerrilla groups, notably the FARC and the smaller National Liberation Army
(Ejrcito de Liberacin Nacional, ELN) are responsible for widespread human rights abuses and violations of
IHL.23
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11
FORCED DISPLACEMENT AND THE ILLEGAL ACQUISITION OF LAND

Each year, hundreds of thousands of women, men and children join the millions of people
forcibly displaced in Colombia. The incidence of displacement in Colombia is one of the
highest in the world. The phenomenon has been widespread and systematic and, as such, a
crime against humanity. Almost 6 million people have been forced to flee their homes
nearly 220,000 in 2013 alone24 and seek refuge elsewhere in the country; hundreds of
thousands more have fled to neighbouring countries.
According to official figures, it is estimated that around 45% of forcibly displaced
households are headed by a woman (compared with 30% of households in the country as a
whole). Some 93% of forcibly displaced persons are from rural or semi-rural areas, which
amounts to more than 20% of the total rural population, while over 10% are from Afrodescendant or Indigenous communities.25
The reasons people are forced to flee vary. However, the one overwhelming factor is the
continuing armed conflict. Historically, the security forces counter-insurgency strategy has
been largely based on the premise that those living in conflict areas are their enemies, simply
because of where they live. Guerrilla and paramilitary groups have also viewed communities
in conflict areas as either their allies or their enemies. They too have failed to respect the
right of civilians not to be dragged into the conflict. However, forced displacement in
Colombia is not simply driven by military confrontation between armed actors; economic and
political interests are a major factor.
For Indigenous Peoples, Afro-descendant communities and peasant farmers, whose identities
and livelihoods are intimately linked with the land on which they live and work, the trauma of
displacement has been particularly acute.
Some of those who flee are accidental victims of the conflict who found themselves in the
wrong place at the wrong time. Others have been targeted as part of a deliberate policy to
remove people from areas believed to be of strategic importance or under enemy control.
Still others have been forced to leave their lands because of the rich resources they hold;
forcibly removing the inhabitants and expropriating their lands opens up the possibility of
large profits for those willing to commit human rights abuses. It is precisely for this reason
that Indigenous, Afro-descendant and peasant farmer communities, many of whom live in
areas which have been earmarked for large economic projects, such as mineral and oil
exploration, agro-industrial developments or hydro-electric installations, have been so badly
affected.
Although women are generally not directly involved in the hostilities, they are the most
affected by the trauma of displacement. Some of them are recently widowed, and have been
forced to flee their rural homes with their children, abandon their livestock and possessions,
and take precarious refuge in shanty towns surrounding towns and cities. More than half of
all internally displaced persons are women. Many displaced women have themselves
subsequently become leaders and spokespersons for their families and communities. This
has often increased their level of risk and led to threats and attacks against them. Some have
even been rejected by their families and communities for adopting leadership roles not
deemed appropriate for women.
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12

Forcibly displaced women are also at far greater risk of being sexually abused, raped or
forced into prostitution because of their particular social, psychological and economic
condition. The particular risks of rape and other forms of sexual violence that displaced
women face, especially women from Indigenous, Afro-descendant and peasant farmer
communities, was acknowledged by Colombias Constitutional Court in its Judicial Decision
092 (Auto 092) of 2008. While on the move and once they have settled elsewhere, displaced
women face serious barriers that prevent them from accessing goods and services in a
climate where they are often stigmatized and their access to resources and protection may be
determined by whether or not they provide sexual services.
Colombia is also home to dozens of distinct Indigenous Peoples, many of whom live in areas
where the conflict is most intense and which are rich in biodiversity, minerals and oil, such
as in the departments of Nario, Choc, Cauca and Valle del Cauca, La Guajira, Crdoba,
Vichada, Putumayo, Risaralda, Caldas, Arauca, Boyac, Casanare, Meta and Guaviare. They
are thus at particular risk from the conflict and displacement that threaten their way of life
and, in some cases, their very survival. In 2009, the Constitutional Court issued a ruling on
the rights of Indigenous Peoples displaced by the conflict Judicial Decision 004 (Auto 004)
of 2009. The Court linked forced displacement with the extinction of Indigenous Peoples and
urged the government to prevent such displacements and to pay particular attention to
displaced Indigenous communities.
Afro-descendant communities have also faced discrimination and social exclusion, with many
communities forced to flee from their collectively owned territories. In 2009 the
Constitutional Court issued Judicial Decision 005 (Auto 005) of 2009, which examined the
situation faced by Afro-descendant communities in relation to their forced displacement who,
like Indigenous People, are subjects with special constitutional protection in Colombia.26
In Auto 005 the Court concluded that the rights of Afro-descendant communities forcibly
displaced by the conflict were being massively and continuously ignored and called on the
authorities to take concrete measures to address this failure.27
The sheer scale of forced displacement in which whole towns were abandoned facilitated
the whole-scale theft of land and other assets since there was literally no one left to defend
their property. After families and even whole communities were forced to flee, armed actors
and others simply occupied their land.
Land has been illegally acquired through various means, including violently, through threats
and killings; though the irregular assignment of state-owned lands (baldos) by corrupt
notaries and other public officials; through economic pressure, such as the destruction of
crops and the blocking of basic services such as water; socially, by repopulating lands with
outsiders, the co-option of community leaders and the setting up of competing and hostile
community organizations; and by simply threatening landholders to sell their land at a low
price, often to paramilitary frontmen, known as straw men (testaferros), or directly to
paramilitaries.28 On some occasions, purchasing the land was not necessary since the victim
did not possess a land title. Victims of forced displacement have also sold their lands to
others at a low price as a means to survive in circumstances where they no longer had the
means to sustain themselves on their property. In this scenario the purchaser may have had
no involvement in the forced displacement, nor set out to derive benefit from the forced
displacement, although the low price often paid for the land may be considered a benefit. In
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13
many other cases, forcibly displaced people have occupied lands abandoned by the original
owners, who themselves were forced to leave because of the armed conflict.
Forced displacement often pushes down the price of land allowing firms and individuals to
buy it cheaply, at least in those cases were the original occupants were in possession of land
titles. In other cases, lands may have simply been acquired following forced displacement
and sold on to third-party business interests.
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14

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15
3. LAND REFORM AND RESTITUTION:

THE LEGAL FRAMEWORK
In Colombia, it is very easy to dispossess peasant
farmers from [their] lands
Woman land claimant and land activist, Magdalena Department, December 2013
Land is the most important resource for rural communities in terms of fulfilling their
economic, social and cultural rights, including their rights to food, water, work and housing.
There is no specific right to land in international law, except for Indigenous People.
However, the right to property, and the right not to be deprived of it, is enshrined in the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR)29 and in the American Convention on Human
Rights,30 although this does not mean that individuals have a human right to land in and of
itself. There are, however, a number of related human rights, such as the right to an
adequate standard of living and the right to adequate housing, work, health and food, which
are enshrined in international human rights treaties.
Many of these human rights cannot be enjoyed by rural communities without them having
access to land. Access to land is, therefore, closely linked to the ability of subsistence
farmers to satisfy these fundamental rights and is essential for the day-to-day survival and
wellbeing of such communities.
Colombia has ratified and is therefore bound by a number of international human rights
instruments that affirm the rights noted above, including the American Convention on
Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
(ICCPR), the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), the
Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), and
the Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention of the International Labour Organization (ILO
Convention 169).
In this respect, General Comment No.4 of the ICESCR Committee states that increasing
access to land by landless or impoverished segments of the society should constitute a
central policy goal. Discernible governmental obligations need to be developed aiming to
substantiate the right of all to a secure place to live in peace and dignity, including access to
land as an entitlement.31
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16

Moreover, the potential explicit right to land is an issue that in the last few years has been
explored by some inter-governmental bodies. For example in 2012, the UN Human Rights
Council Advisory Committee published a final study on the advancement of the rights of
peasants and other people working in rural areas, including a draft Declaration, which is
currently under discussion. Article 4 of the draft Declaration, on the right to land and
territory, proposes that [p]easants have the right to own land, individually or collectively, for
their housing and farming.32
Under international law, women have equal rights to men including in terms of access to
land. CEDAW, for example, states that women should have equal treatment in land and
agrarian reform as well as in land resettlement schemes. 33 CEDAW also states that men and
women have the same rights in respect of the ownership, acquisition, management,
administration, enjoyment and disposition of property.34
Colombias 1991 Constitution acknowledges the importance of land ownership for peasant
farmers, noting that the state has a duty to promote the progressive access to land
ownership by agrarian workers, individually or through an association, and to education,
health, housing, social security, recreation, credit, communications, marketing of products,
technical and business assistance services in order to improve income and the quality of life
of peasant farmers.35
Although there are fundamentally binding rights to property, there are no legally binding
international instruments that guarantee land restitution for forcibly displaced communities.
However, all victims of human rights violations have a right to an effective remedy. This right
has been recognized by a number of international and regional human rights treaties,
including the UDHR, ICCPR, ICESCR, CEDAW and the American Convention on Human
Rights, as well as by customary international law. The right to an effective remedy includes
the right of victims to adequate, effective and prompt reparation for harm suffered.
Reparation, as defined by the 2005 UN Basic Principles and Guidelines on the Right to a
Remedy and Reparation for Victims of Gross Violations of International Human Rights Law
and Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law (UN Principles on the Right to a
Remedy), consists of measures designed to repair the harm caused to victims of human
rights abuses and violations and should, essentially, remove the consequences of the
violation and, as far as possible, restore those who have been affected to the situation they
would have been in had the abuse or violation not taken place. There are five categories of
reparation restitution, including the return to ones place of residence and the return of
property; compensation; rehabilitation; satisfaction; and guarantees of non-repetition,
including measures to guarantee that those responsible for human rights abuses and
violations are prosecuted.36
But, as stated above, there are also a number of fundamental human rights that cannot be
enjoyed unless rural communities, including those who have been displaced, have access to
land. Over the last few decades, many of these rights have been restated in UN principles
that offer states a blueprint for effectively addressing land, property and housing restitution
for victims of forced displacement.
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17
The 1998 Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement, known as the Deng Principles, state
that the [c]ompetent authorities have the primary duty and responsibility to establish
conditions, as well as provide the means, which allow internally displaced persons to return
voluntarily, in safety and with dignity, to their homes or places of habitual residence, or to
resettle voluntarily in another part of the country. 37
The Deng Principles also state that the [c]ompetent authorities have the duty and
responsibility to assist returned and/or resettled internally displaced persons to recover, to the
extent possible, their property and possessions they left behind or were dispossessed upon
their displacement. When recovery of such property and possessions is not possible,
competent authorities shall provide or assist these persons in obtaining appropriate
compensation or another form of just reparation. 38
As noted above, the UN Principles on the Right to a Remedy note that victims of gross
violations of international human rights law or serious violations of international humanitarian
law39 should, as appropriate and proportional to the gravity of the violation and the
circumstances of each case, be provided with full and effective reparation which include
the following forms: restitution, compensation, rehabilitation, satisfaction and guarantees of
non-repetition.40 Restitution includes, among other things, the right to return to ones
place of residence, restoration of employment and return of property. 41
The 2005 Principles on Housing and Property Restitution for Refugees and Displaced
Persons, known as the Pinheiro Principles, state that all refugees and displaced persons
have the right to have restored to them any housing, land and/or property of which they were
arbitrarily or unlawfully deprived, or to be compensated for any housing, land and/or property
that is factually impossible to restore as determined by an independent, impartial tribunal. 42
The Pinheiro Principles also outline a series of additional rights to be enjoyed by refugees
and displaced persons, such as the equal right of men and women, and the equal right of
boys and girls, to housing, land and property restitution, including to legal security of
tenure, property ownership, equal access to inheritance, as well as the use, control of and
access to housing, land and property.43 The Pinheiro Principles affirm the right to adequate
housing;44 to voluntary return in safety and dignity;45 and the right to adequate consultation
and participation in decision-making.46 They additionally make reference to the rights of
tenants and other non-owners47 and of secondary occupants,48 important rights in the context
of Colombias high levels of land informality and the fact that many landholdings have
multiple claimants, many of whom are victims of human rights abuses.
The right to adequate housing is enshrined in the ICESCR, which notes that state parties
must recognize the right of everyone to an adequate standard of living for himself and his
family, including adequate food, clothing and housing, and to the continuous improvement of
living conditions.49 Thus, General Comment No.4 of the ICESCR Committee states that
[t]he human right to adequate housing, which is thus derived from the right to an adequate
standard of living, is of central importance for the enjoyment of all economic, social and
cultural rights.50
The importance of land reform as a means to guarantee the sustainability of land tenure has
some backing in guidelines issued by inter-governmental organizations. For instance, the
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Voluntary Guidelines on the responsible governance of tenure of land, fisheries and forests in
the context of national food security, issued by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization in
2012,51 state that [i]n the national context and in accordance with national law and
legislation, redistributive reforms may be considered for social, economic and environmental
reasons, among others, where a high degree of ownership concentration is combined with a
significant level of rural poverty attributable to lack of access to land, fisheries and forests. 52
The Voluntary Guidelines also state that [w]here States choose to implement redistributive
reforms, they should develop policies and laws, through participatory processes, to make
them sustainable. States should ensure that policies and laws assist beneficiaries, whether
communities, families or individuals, to earn an adequate standard of living from the land,
fisheries and forests they acquire and ensure equal treatment of men and women in
redistributive reforms.53
LAND REFORM
Concentration of land ownership in Colombia is one of the highest in the world just over 1%
of landholders own over half of the countrys agricultural lands, while smallholders, mostly
poor peasant farmers who make up more than three-quarters of all landholders, occupy a
relatively small portion of all agricultural land; just over 10%.54 In a 2011 report on
Colombia, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) noted that Colombia
registers one of the highest levels of inequality in rural property in Latin America and the
world. This is the consequence of a historical process, of public policies, of the operation of
market forces, of drug trafficking and of the activities of illegal armed groups. 55
This inequality, and the rural poverty it has engendered, has been one of the major causes of
the ongoing armed conflict. Much of the forced displacement of almost 6 million people was
designed to facilitate land grabs by large landowners and powerful businesspeople (many
with links to armed groups, principally paramilitaries), as well as by drug traffickers and
paramilitary groups. Guerrilla groups are also responsible for land grabs, but to a lesser
degree.
Over the last 50 years there have been several attempts to address the problem of land
inequality, including Law 135 of 1961, which had three main objectives: to allocate land
and titles to peasant farmers via the purchase of plots of land; to adapt these lands so that
they became productive; and to provide basic social services to those working the land. 56
Several institutions were created under Law 135, including the Colombian Institute of
Agrarian Reform (Instituto Colombiano de la Reforma Agraria, INCORA). Its role was, in part,
to allocate state-owned lands often unused lands or wastelands known as baldos to
landless peasant farmers and to provide the means for them to work the land. INCORA was
replaced by the Colombian Institute of Rural Development (Instituto Colombiano de
Desarrollo Rural, INCODER) in 2003 via Decree 1300. Law 135 also defined the Family
Agricultural Unit (Unidad Agrcola Familiar, UAF), a unit of measurement equal to the
amount of land needed by a family to ensure their livelihood.
In 1994, Law 160 was enacted to promote the development of the peasant farming economy
by empowering INCORA, through the state Agrarian Bank, to provide subsidies set at 70%
of the value of the land with loans for the remaining 30% to enable landless peasant
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farmers to buy land. The purchase of baldos was limited to 1 UAF per family to prevent the
further concentration of land ownership. Credit was provided to enable the purchase of
materials and livestock needed to work the land. According to INCODER, 500,000 baldos
covering 19 million hectares of land were transferred to peasant farmers between 1960 and
2012.57 Law 160 also enabled some women to obtain land; specifically women who were
heads of households, victims of the conflict, widows, and those who had been abandoned by
their partners.
However, no effective protection strategies were put in place, and many of the families who
benefited from Law 160 were forced to abandon their lands soon after because of threats and
killings, mainly by paramilitaries, either acting alone or in collusion with the security forces.
Many of the economic support measures envisioned in Law 160 were also not implemented,
such as credits for making the land productive, while many beneficiaries were unable to
service the debts they had incurred as part of Law 160. So while many peasant farmer
families had access to land, they lacked the resources to make their tenure sustainable. This
was exacerbated by the poor quality of much of the land that was distributed by INCORA.
The combination of violence and the lack of means to survive on the land or service their
debts forced many families to leave. Many of the lands that were abandoned or
dispossessed58 from these communities were subsequently illegally acquired by local and
regional businesspeople, as well as by paramilitaries and drug traffickers, often with the
assistance of corrupt public officials, including INCORA employees and notaries.59
LAND RESTITUTION
Colombias Constitutional Court has repeatedly asserted the rights of forcibly displaced
women and men including peasant farmers and people of Indigenous and Afro-descendant
communities to land, housing and property restitution.60
There have been several legislative efforts to facilitate access to land for those forcibly
displaced as a result of the conflict. In 1995, for example, INCORA issued Agreement 018,
which modified Law 160 by permitting the allocation of land to those displaced by
violence,61 while Law 387 of 1997 broadened the subsidy programme for the purchase of
land, as stipulated by Law 160 of 1994, to include displaced communities.
Law 387 also ordered INCORA to design and implement a register of lands abandoned as a
consequence of the armed conflict the Single Register of Abandoned Rural Properties and
Territories (Registro nico de Predios y Territorios Abandonados, RUPTA) and to inform the
relevant authorities so that they could embargo such lands to prevent their transfer or sale
without the express wish of the rightful occupant.62 Law 387 additionally called on the
government to design and implement a national action plan for the displaced population,
including measures to provide legal assistance to displaced people to guarantee the
restitution of their rights.63
In 2002, Laws 785 and 793 enabled INCORA, and subsequently INCODER, to hand over
rural lands confiscated from drug traffickers and money launderers by the National Narcotics
Department (Departamento Nacional de Estupefacientes, DNE) to peasant farmers. By 2012
only around 36,000 hectares of confiscated rural lands had been handed over to around
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20

2,800 families under this mechanism, and this included around 4,000 hectares which were
handed over to 460 members of illegal armed groups and their families. 64
Law 975 of 2005 the Justice and Peace Law which allowed thousands of paramilitaries
to demobilize in return for reduced prison sentences, also stipulated that paramilitaries
return to their rightful occupants land and property they had misappropriated in the course of
the conflict. This land restitution mechanism was administered by the now defunct National
Commission of Reparation and Reconciliation (Comisin Nacional de Reparacin y
Reconciliacin, CNRR) created under Law 975. However, much of the land acquired illegally
by paramilitaries was not handed over to the rightful occupants. Moreover, many
paramilitaries failed to demobilize, while at the time of writing only 63 have been sentenced
for human rights violations almost a decade after the law came into effect.
In fact, much of the land illegally acquired by paramilitaries was never declared by them,
despite this being a legal requirement under the terms of Law 975. Furthermore, the
falsification of land registry documents by public officials collaborating with paramilitaries or
acting under duress has meant that much of the land illegally acquired by paramilitaries has
never been identified.
The failure of the state to prevent forced displacement led the Constitutional Court to issue
several rulings, including Sentence T-025 in 2004, which concluded that state policy on
displacement amounted to an unconstitutional state of affairs. In 2005, the government
developed a national action plan to address some of the concerns raised by the Constitutional
Court,65 including measures to promote access to land and land restitution, as well as the
formalization of land ownership.66 However, since its T-025 ruling the Constitutional Court
has repeatedly criticized the Colombian authorities for failing to implement its orders with
respect to the displaced population,67 including on issues relating to access to land, and for
failing to provide the necessary information to the Court to enable it to better evaluate the
level of compliance with T-025.68
In 2007, the government of lvaro Uribe enacted the Statute of Rural Development, which
sought to reverse the direction of previous land reforms, notably Law 160, by promoting the
market as the principal mechanism for distributing land.69 However, in 2009 the
Constitutional Court ruled that the Statute was unconstitutional because the right of
Indigenous communities to prior consultation had not been respected. 70
Under President Juan Manuel Santos, agricultural policy has been closely associated with
recent efforts to end the armed conflict and to promote the related issues of victims rights
and land restitution and to provide legal security to those investing in agro-industrial and
other economic projects on rural lands. The Victims and Land Restitution Law (Law 1448)
can only be understood in this context. But it must be stressed, however, that Law 1448 is
not per se a land reform, but simply a mechanism to return some illegally acquired lands to
their rightful occupants and to give these occupants legal ownership over these lands, as well
as to provide other forms of reparation to some victims of the conflict.
Regardless, Law 1448 was clearly viewed by the authorities as a necessary first step to
convince the FARC to enter into peace negotiations, although the arguably more thorny issue
of land reform itself has been left to the negotiating table. In May 2013, the two sides
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reached a partial agreement on land reform, including on access to and formalization of land,
rural development, and poverty eradication. The details of the partial agreement were made
public in September 2014.71 What is clear is that the long-term viability of a peace
agreement will partly depend on the ability of the two sides to agree to measures that will
effectively address the land question.
All efforts thus far to address land inequality have failed, mainly because little has been done
to change the structure of land ownership in Colombia, with large tracts of land remaining
mostly in the hands of the few, and to address the endemic corruption that has plagued
efforts to redistribute land. These efforts served only to enrich those responsible for managing
such schemes, for example INCORA/INCODER personnel and notaries responsible for issuing
land titles. Corrupt officials often handed over state-owned land meant for peasant farmers to
landowners, companies, illegal armed groups and corrupt politicians and businesspeople.
Many notaries were responsible for legalizing lands bought from peasant farmers for belowmarket rates and through often violent pressure, or legalizing the transfer of ownership of
land which had, because of the conflict, been abandoned or its occupants forcibly displaced.
In some cases, landowners evicted the peasant farmers working on their land to prevent them
claiming ownership over it.72
Above all, the conflict has served to further concentrate land ownership. Much of this illegally
acquired land, which was often obtained violently or sold under duress, has been used by
these actors for large-scale mining, agro-industry, ranching and farming. This, coupled with
the difficulties in making a sustainable living from farming, has had a devastating impact on
rural dwellers and partly explains why those living in the countryside cannot sustain
themselves. According to official statistics, 57.5% of the rural population remain poor and
23% continue to live in extreme poverty, compared with 34.4% and 9.4% respectively of the
urban population.73
TERRITORIAL RIGHTS FOR INDIGENOUS AND AFRO-DESCENDANT COMMUNITIES

Indigenous and Afro-descendant communities have an attachment to their land that
transcends its productive value. As such, there has been an acknowledgement, in both
international and national law, that these communities have special rights over the lands they
inhabit.74 Colombias 1991 Constitution recognizes the countrys ethnic and cultural
diversity,75 and asserts that the communal lands of ethnic groups, that is Indigenous
Peoples and Afro-descendant communities, are inalienable, inextinguishable and immune
from seizure.76
The right of Indigenous People in Colombia to their ancestral lands, and the Cabildo
(Indigenous Council) as the maximum political authority within their territories, dates back to
the Colonial era, and legislation recognizing their right to land was first enacted in the 19th
Century.77 However, the right of Afro-descendant communities to collective ownership over
their ancestral lands, and recognition of the Community Councils (Consejos Comunitarios) as
their maximum authority, was not legislated on until the enactment of Law 70 in 1993.78
According to official figures, there are nearly 1.4 million Indigenous People in Colombia,
around 3.4% of Colombias total population.79 The authorities recognize 85 distinct
Indigenous groups, although the National Indigenous Organization of Colombia (Organizacin
Nacional Indgena de Colombia, ONIC) puts the number at 102. More than 70% of
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Indigenous People live in rural areas, many in the more than 700 reservations (resguardos)
that have been allocated by the state, covering more than 30 million hectares of land, which
is around 27% of the national territory.80 However, almost half a million Indigenous People
do not live in reservations and do not have official recognition of their collective land rights.
There are also over 4 million Afro-descendants, around 10% of the total population, 81 mostly
living in coastal areas. The state has granted some 170 collective land titles to Afrodescendant communities covering more than 5 million hectares of land. 82
Because of Indigenous Peoples spiritual and cultural attachment to their ancestral lands or
territories, international treaties and instruments recognize that such communities have
special rights over their ancestral lands and the development of these lands.
The 2007 UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which is not legally binding
but does carry significant legal weight, states: 1. Indigenous peoples have the right to the
lands, territories and resources which they have traditionally owned, occupied or otherwise
used or acquired. 2. Indigenous peoples have the right to own, use, develop and control the
lands, territories and resources that they possess by reason of traditional ownership or other
traditional occupation or use, as well as those which they have otherwise acquired. 3. States
shall give legal recognition and protection to these lands, territories and resources. Such
recognition shall be conducted with due respect to the customs, traditions and land tenure
systems of the indigenous peoples concerned. 83 The Declaration was finally endorsed by
Colombia in April 2009; Colombia had originally abstained when the Declaration was
adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2007.
ILO Convention 169 on Indigenous and Tribal Peoples, which is a legally binding treaty, also
asserts, among other things, the right of Indigenous Peoples to the lands they traditionally
occupy84 and calls on governments to identify the lands which the peoples concerned
traditionally occupy, and to guarantee effective protection of their rights of ownership and
possession.85 ILO Convention 169 was ratified by the Colombian state in 1991.86 In 2003,
Colombias Constitutional Court ruled that ILO Convention 169 was also applicable to Afrodescendant communities.87
ILO Convention 169 also obliges states to consult Indigenous and tribal people on issues
which affect their rights, with the aim of seeking their consent or agreement. 88 The right of
Indigenous Peoples and Afro-descendant communities in Colombia to prior consultation,
including over how their territories and natural resources are developed, has been enshrined
in Colombian law through several Constitutional Court rulings and government decrees. 89
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4. LAW 1448 OF 2011: THE VICTIMS

AND LAND RESTITUTION LAW
We have been fighting all the time for the land and
we will continue to fight.
Land claimant from Magdalena Department, November 2013
President Juan Manuel Santos signed off on the Victims and Land Restitution Law (Law
1448) on 10 June 2011, and its provisions came into force on 1 January 2012. The
government issued several other related decrees, including on reparation for Indigenous and
Afro-descendant communities, which are not covered by Law 1448. The government has
presented Law 1448 as a mechanism to facilitate the gradual reparation of victims of the
conflict, including the return to the rightful occupants of millions of hectares of land that was
illegally acquired, mostly from peasant farmers and Indigenous and Afro-descendant
communities.90 As stated earlier, this report will only examine those aspects of the law
relating to land restitution.
It should be noted that regardless of the many weaknesses that this report will identify, Law
1448 is still, undeniably, a significant step forward in efforts to ensure respect for victims
right to reparation. Crucially, it acknowledges the existence of an internal armed conflict,
which the government of President lvaro Uribe (2002-2010) failed to do. In so doing, the
government was, by extension, acknowledging that in Colombia there were victims of the
conflict and that such victims possessed human rights, including the right to full reparation,
which had to be respected. Law 1448 also encompasses other advances, such as the
inclusion of differential measures, including on physical security provisions, designed
specifically for groups and communities at particular risk of human rights abuses and
violations, such as women, survivors of sexual violence, land claimants and human rights
defenders.
THE INSTITUTIONAL FRAMEWORK OF LAW 1448

Law 1448, which the government claims is unique in that it applies transitional justice
mechanisms during an ongoing armed conflict, created a complex institutional framework,
combining administrative and transitional justice mechanisms, for delivering reparation,
including land restitution, to victims. These mechanisms include the Unit for Attention and
Reparation of Victims (Unidad para la Atencin y Reparacin Integral a las Vctimas, UARIV),
which is responsible for co-ordinating the implementation of full reparation to victims of the
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conflict; the Special Administrative Unit for Managing the Restitution of Dispossessed Lands
(Unidad Administrativa Especial de Gestin de Restitucin de Tierras Despojadas,
UAEGRTD), also known as the Land Restitution Unit (Unidad de Restitucin de Tierras,
URT), which is responsible for implementing the administrative phase of the land restitution
process; the restitution judges and magistrates, who are responsible for the judicial phase of
the land restitution process; and the National Centre of Historic Memory (Centro Nacional de
Memoria Histrica), the successor to the CNRR and which is responsible for collating
information on conflict-related violence as part of the states obligation to provide full
reparation for victims.
These institutions, as well as other national, regional and local state and governmental bodies
that have a role to play in the implementation of the reparation process, make up the
National System for the Attention and Full Reparation of Victims (Sistema Nacional de
Atencin y Reparacin Integral a las Vctimas, SNARIV), also created under Law 1448, and
which is co-ordinated by UARIV.
Law 1448 states that the land restitution process must be implemented gradually and
progressively taking into account the security situation, the historic density of [land]
dispossession and the existence of conditions to return. 91 Land restitution, as well as
reparation generally, will therefore be implemented over a 10-year period, through a process
that will prioritize for land restitution specific geographical areas. Certain areas are excluded
from the land restitution process under Law 1448, such as Indigenous and Afro-descendant
collective territories, and forestry reserves. The decision on which areas of the country to
prioritize (a process known as macro-focalization) is taken by the states National Security
Council, based on information provided by the Defence Ministry and on the three criteria
noted above.92 As of 30 June 2014, there were 14 macro-focalized areas covering 16
departments.93 Land restitution can only be considered in those areas that have been macrofocalized.
The URT is responsible for identifying which municipalities or hamlets or even individual
farms within the macro-focalized areas will actually be subject to restitution (in a process
known as micro-focalization). However, the decision on whether to micro-focalize a particular
area has to be approved by so-called Local Land Restitution Operative Committees (Comits
Locales de Restitucin de Tierras, COLR), made up of representatives from the URT, the
Office of the Procurator General and the Defence Ministry. The COLR makes a decision on
whether to micro-focalize an area on the basis of security information provided by the
Defence Ministrys Integrated Intelligence Centre for Land Restitution (Centro Integrado de
Inteligencia para la Restitucin de Tierras, CI2RT). The CI2RT includes, among others,
representatives from the armed forces, the police and the security services. The URT is not
authorized to initiate land restitution processes in a particular area unless it is authorized by
the COLR.
The land restitution process envisioned in Law 1448 involves a three-stage process, which
combines administrative, judicial and post-sentence phases.
ADMINISTRATIVE PHASE
This is implemented by the URT through its 21 regional offices. The URT is responsible for
deciding on the admissibility of a land restitution claim and for processing it once it has been
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accepted. According to Law 1448, claims can only be registered and processed if they meet
several strict criteria, notably that the claim relates to land in areas of the country that have
been prioritized for restitution (areas that has been micro-focalized), that the claim is related
to the conflict, that the forced displacement and abandonment or dispossession of the land
took place after 1991, and that the claimant was either an owner (propietario), landholder
(poseedor) or occupant (ocupante) of the land he or she is claiming.94
The administrative phase begins once an individual victim or a community makes a claim to
the URT. The URT then has 10 days to decide whether the claim meets the criteria outlined
above. If the claim meets the criteria, the URT opens a file on the claim, which includes
basic information about the claimants, any evidence and documentation they can provide on
the land they are claiming and information on the abandonment or dispossession of the land.
The URT then has 60 days, which can be extended by a further 30 days, to investigate the
case and carry out the necessary information and evidence gathering. After this, a decision is
made whether or not to include the case in the Register of Forcibly Dispossessed and
Abandoned Lands (Registro de Tierras Despojadas y Abandonadas Forzosamente, RTDAF),
which is managed by the URT. The administrative phase ends once a restitution claim has
been included in the RTDAF by the URT.95
JUDICIAL PHASE
The URT, or lawyers sub-contracted by the URT, prepare a judicial action for restitution that
is presented to the restitution judge for judicial adjudication. There are 39 restitution judges
around the country. If there is no opposition to the claim, that is, there is no third party
claiming ownership over the same piece of land, then the restitution judge will issue a ruling
granting the claimant legal ownership over that land and ordering a variety of additional
measures to ensure that the claimants right to full reparation is respected. Such measures
can include orders to improve basic services and infrastructure in the area, such as roads,
water and energy, as well as debt and tax relief, and subsidies and credit for agricultural
projects and housing.
There are cases when a third party, who may be living on or working on the land being
claimed, or who may simply claim ownership over it, may challenge the claim. Such
challengers are referred to under Law 1448 as opponents (opositor). Opponents can be
individuals (such as victims of forced displacement who settled on land originally occupied
by other victims) or peasant farmers who moved into the area. Opponents can also be
individuals who were responsible for the forced displacement of the claimant, straw men
brought in by paramilitaries, or businesses with economic projects on the land.
The law stipulates two types of opponents good faith and bad faith opponents. Good faith
opponents must prove that they bought or occupy the land in good faith without
culpability, that is, they did not or could not have known that the land had been acquired
illegally, that it was the object of forced abandonment or dispossession, and that if they
bought the land that they paid a fair price for it. If an opponent can prove that they acted in
good faith, he or she will be compensated for the loss of the land. If an opponent cannot
prove that they acted in good faith, then they are defined as bad faith opponents and have no
right to compensation. Those land restitution cases in which opponents challenge a claim are
passed on by the restitution judge to the restitution magistrates, of which there are 15
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around the country, for adjudication. Judges and magistrates have a deadline of four months
to rule on individual cases.
The judicial phase applies a transitional justice model that, unlike in ordinary justice
systems, reverses the burden of proof. In theory, this has meant that the burden of proof to
demonstrate ownership in good faith falls instead on the third party, that is, the opponent,
regardless of whether or not they are also victims, straw men or a business.
In considering their decision, the judges must adopt a presumption of credibility and treat as
reliable the evidence collected and provided by the URT. In cases where there is no opponent
the judge must make a judgment based only on the evidence provided by the URT, but in
cases where there is opposition a judge has the right to request additional information. The
parties in a judicial process must also be assisted by a lawyer who defends their interests. In
the case of claimants, but not opponents, legal representation is provided by the URT, either
by the URTs own lawyers or by sub-contracted lawyers, generally from human rights NGOs.
Opponents may hire private counsel, but since most opponents are peasant farmers, they
have lacked the financial resources to do so. The Office of the Human Rights Ombudsman
has initiated a legal aid programme for opponents who cannot pay for a lawyer, but the
programme is still at a very early stage.96
POST-SENTENCE PHASE
Several state institutions including the URT, UARIV and restitution judges and magistrates
are responsible for ensuring the rulings are implemented. This follow-up role is co-ordinated
by SNARIV, as mentioned above. According to Law 1448, the judicial rulings should include
not only the material restitution of land, but can also include complementary measures, such
as those noted above, to ensure that successful land claimants right to full reparation and
sustainable land restitution is respected.
In the post-restitution phase, INCODER is responsible for issuing land titles to any claims
relating to state-owned lands (baldos), while the Register of Public Instruments (Oficina de
Registro de Instrumentos Pblicos) is responsible for registering all land titles. The URT is
responsible for compensating those third parties who were on claimants lands in good faith,
as well those who cannot return to the land that has been the object of restitution. The URT
also has an obligation to implement any orders on tax and debt relief issued by the restitution
judges and magistrates, while the UARIV is charged with organizing the return home of
successful land claimants. Finally, the local and regional authorities, principally the mayors
and governors offices, have responsibility for implementing and financing many of the
additional complementary measures ordered by the judges, such as basic infrastructure
improvements and humanitarian assistance.
TERRITORIAL RESTITUTION FOR INDIGENOUS AND AFRO-DESCENDANT

COMMUNITIES
The land restitution process for Indigenous and Afro-descendant communities, who have
collective rights over their territories, is different to the process for peasant farmers, and is
set out in two decrees issued in 2011: Decree Law 4633 for Indigenous People and Decree
Law 4635 for Afro-descendant communities. These include measures to guarantee the right
of these communities to prior consultation and allow for restitution in territories that are
legally recognized reservations (resguardos) in the case of Indigenous communities, and
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Community Councils (Consejos Comunitarios) in the case of Afro-descendant communities

as well as in ancestral territories, which are not legally recognized.
CONSULTATION AND CONSENT:

WHAT RIGHTS DO COMMUNITIES HAVE?
The right to be consulted about projects and policies that may impact on communities is reinforced by
international human rights instruments, including the ICCPR, ICESCR, the Convention on the Elimination of All
Forms of Racial Discrimination, and ILO Convention 169.
In the case of Indigenous Peoples, the 2007 UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (2007
Declaration) requires states to obtain the free, prior and informed consent of Indigenous Peoples in a number
of situations in which their rights may be significantly affected. In certain cases usually relating to land
rights initiatives should not go ahead unless the consent of the community has been obtained. This is
because the ability of Indigenous People to maintain their culture and livelihood depends on their relationship
to ancestral lands.
However, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights has found that free, prior and informed consent was
required in the case of a non-Indigenous community in Suriname because its relationship to its land was
essentially the same as that of an Indigenous People.97 In Colombia, national legislation also lays down
requirements for consultation with Afro-descendant communities.98
Consultation is a process of substantive dialogue between communities and governments on any measures
that may affect them. Governments should address the concerns that such communities have and take
proactive steps to ensure that their human rights are fully respected and protected. Timely disclosure of all
relevant information about any change that may affect a community and its possible human rights impact is
key to a genuine consultation, which has to respect the following principles:
free: all dialogue and decision-making structures must be fair and without coercion, manipulation, threat,
fear of reprisal, corruption or unequal bargaining power;
prior: all dialogue and agreements must take place before any potentially detrimental measures are taken and
the communities must be given sufficient time to give their consent, in full respect of their decision-making
processes and in accordance with their values and traditions;
informed: communities must be provided with full and objective information about all relevant aspects of the
measure proposed, in a clear manner that is disclosed in a culturally appropriate way; they also must have the
possibility of obtaining independent advice.
The consent of the people is required through their chosen representative structures and decision-making
processes. Therefore, decisions need to include everyone in the community, including women and other
community members who may be additionally marginalized.
This will ensure that the concerns of communities with regard to measures that could lead to a significant
impact upon them can be addressed to the extent possible, and that all possible avenues for mitigating
impacts on the rights of communities are explored. Potential impact should be determined, first and foremost,
Index: AMR 23/031/2014
28

by the communities themselves and taking into account their vulnerable situation and the history of
discrimination against them.
The right of Indigenous Peoples to a process of free, prior and informed consent has been applied by the UN
Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination and the UN Human Rights Committee, as well as the
Inter-American Court of Human Rights.
The URTs Directorate for Ethnic Affairs (Direccin de Asuntos tnicos) is responsible for the
restitution of the territorial rights of Indigenous and Afro-descendant communities. To be
eligible for restitution, territories must meet some of the admissibility criteria in Law 1448
that the abandonment or dispossession occurred after 1991, that it was caused by the armed
conflict, and that the restitution process has to be gradual, that is, that only certain
territories will be prioritized (or focalized) for restitution at any one time.
Those communities living in territories that have not been prioritized can request that the
URT implements measures (known as precautionary measures) to safeguard the integrity of
their territories until such time as they are earmarked for restitution. Such measures are
designed to protect these communities from, for example, further incursions by armed groups
or exploitation by mining or agro-industrial companies, and thereby prevent further forced
displacements and the illegal acquisition of territories.
On the basis of preliminary studies, the URT, in the case of Afro-descendant territories, then
decides which cases to prioritize for restitution (through so-called characterization studies)
and over which territories to implement precautionary measures. In the case of Indigenous
territories, the Permanent Coalition of Indigenous Peoples and organizations (Mesa
Permanente de Concertacin), which includes Indigenous and state representatives, decides
which Indigenous territories to characterize. 99 The characterization process which must be
completed within 60 days examines the events and context leading up to a communitys
forced displacement, and the social, cultural, economic and environmental damages to the
communities concerned.
In the case of Indigenous territories that have been characterized, the URT activates the
ethnic route (ruta tnica) to ensure that the territories are protected (for example from
illegal sales) until such time as the restitution is confirmed by a judge. The ethnic route sets
out the process by which state bodies such as the Agustn Codazzi Geographical Institute
(Instituto Geogrfico Agustn Codazzi, IGAC), the Superintendence of Notaries and Registry
Offices, and INCODER will delineate, legalize and register the territories characterized by the
URT. In the case of Afro-descendant communities, this process is carried out by the Interior
Ministry. Unlike precautionary measures, the ethnic route process is administrative rather
than judicial. Once the characterization process has been completed, and a decision taken to
proceed with the restitution case, the URT identifies those measures that will need to be
implemented to ensure the communitys right to full reparation, and incorporates the territory
in the RTDAF. The URT then presents the judicial action for restitution to the judge for
judicial adjudication.
Index: AMR 23/031/2014
LAND CLAIMANTS
SPEAK OUT
LAND RESTITUTION
IN COLOMBIA
LAND CLAIMANTS SPEAK OUT

LAND RESTITUTION IN COLOMBIA
To achieve peace, there must be truth
TRANQUILANDIA
Tranquilandia farm lies in Aracataca Municipality,

Magdalena Department. This part of northern Colombia
is the birthplace of the Nobel Prize winner Gabriel
Garca Mrquez, and the lives of the peasant farmers
of Tranquilandia would not be out of place in one of his
novels. Yet, in spite of its name Tranquil Land for
many decades the farm has witnessed killings, forced
disappearances and the displacement of those who
once lived peacefully on the land, due to the presence
of guerrilla forces, paramilitaries and the security forces
in the area. Despite these terrible events and the many
obstacles they face, some of the peasant farmers now
dare to hope that they may one day return: You start
dreaming about returning to what you once left behind I
never wanted to leave but I ended up having to do so.
One of the leaders of the families of Tranquilandia
recalls how they came to the land. In 1991 the
opportunity to buy Tranquilandia arose from
the owner, because he was tired of having to pay taxes
to the guerrillas. That is when we began to get ourselves
organized some 340 names were put together to go into a
lottery, because only 66 families could go there The owner
of the farm came to an agreement with us so that we could
begin to work the land, cultivate it as tenant peasant
farmers, sow maize, cassava, plantain The agreement was
that he would give it to us as a gift, if we showed him we
could work In 92, an official from INCORA came to us and
said we were set to be granted access to those plots of land.
In 1996, 66 peasant farmer families created the
Association of Agricultural Producers of Tranquilandia
AI Index: AMR 23/031/2014
(Asociacin de Productores Agropecuarios de

Tranquilandia, APAT), and were awarded a collective land
title by INCORA for 1,829 hectares. This was later revoked
and set to be replaced with individual land titles so that
individual families could apply for credit to buy seeds,
livestock and equipment. Yet, due to the complexity
and expenses involved in registering for a land title,
and the fact that some families were forcibly displaced
before they could formalize their individual titles, only
12 of the 66 families received an individual land title.
When INCORA originally granted a collective land title
to APAT in December 1996, the peasant farmers
received a subsidy from INCORA for 70% of the cost
of the land and APAT had to pay the remaining 30%,
as stipulated in Law 160 of 1994. APAT believes it still
owes this debt as the peasant farmers were forcibly
displaced and not able to pay it back. One of the
peasant farmers recalls that they had a loan what we
had to pay was by instalments, so that was up to date, but
[then] there was the displacement and we all had to go. And
so the debt to the bank was still owing. The lawyers
representing the land claimants have made an official
request to the restitution judge to cancel the mortgage
debt incurred under Law 160.
Several peasant farmers described to Amnesty
International how the displacements began. Although
the guerrilla and the armed forces had been passing
through and occasionally fighting on Tranquilandia
land for decades, the impact of the armed conflict
became more intense when the paramilitary incursions
started in the late 1990s: The paramilitary groups started
coming in they forced their way in and took some cattle we
had on the farm At the time they identified themselves as
being the La Popa Battalion [Batalln La Popa] [a Colombian
army battalion that had been renowned for human rights
Joel Stangle

violations] they were supposedly looking for my mother and

my husband The confrontations started in Tranquilandia
We were already finding unexploded grenades on our plot.
A path running through Tranquilandia
The paramilitaries began controlling the area, putting

restrictions on the movement of food and the freedom
of movement of some peasant farmers: One year, two
years went by, and we were living with the same story of not
being able to get out. The one who went was me. I went out
but I couldnt bring back much food because they had already
put a limit on us.
everything she had in the health post They destroyed the

mattresses, clothes, everything she had there On 4 January
they came to the entrance again but this time they did not
go in. But my mother was afraid and said Im going to go
to Barranquilla for a few days She came to the bus
stop which is diagonally opposite the police station. As she
was waiting for the bus two guys came up and shot her
six times. They murdered her on 4 January at 7:30 at night.
Another peasant farmer remembers: Then in 2003 [the

paramilitaries] took one of my brothers they took him in
front of my mother we never saw my brother again At
that point we left I moved to Aracataca, and my father went
to Fundacin Everything we had there was lost.
Among those targeted and killed was the nurse of
Tranquilandia farm. Her daughter remembered: In
October 2001 they went into the health post, and poisoned
the water, the rice, everything she had. They destroyed
Others described incidents of sexual violence: One

friend from one of the farms further up, they raped his wife,
[and] a daughter she had who was a young woman They
took the girl, who was about 13 or 14, and they raped her
and left her lying there. And they raped his wife. And him
nobody there reported anything [to the authorities].
The teacher of Tranquilandia recalls: The few years we
spent there were very beautiful times, happy times when the
Joel Stangle

Gate to Tranquilandia farm. The gate is pockmarked with

bullet holes due to fighting in the area.
children went to school, I was their teacher everyone lived

in harmony, until the displacement came and the military
groups arrived I had to sleep for two nights in the woods
because there was a confrontation on my plot of land you
could see the bullets They threatened us you were afraid
to come into the village Many friends were murdered like
that I left on 21 October 2001 We started leaving little
by little. Until we had all left.
Many people were killed and forcibly disappeared in
the area. One peasant farmer recalled: Calixto, who is
deceased and was a neighbour of ours, was murdered there.
He was never found, they threw him into the river. Jorge, the
president of the place, is deceased Jorges pregnant wife
too Manuelito, the worker, a man from another farm which
was nearer here, they killed him too the deceased Lder
also.
The forced displacements took place over time: In that
region there were very many confrontations they happened
almost daily We didnt make an agreement to leave but
gradually we left one by one, some first, others later. Of the
66 plots we had in the lower part, just one person remained.
And with such bad luck the army killed him and made out he
was a guerrilla who had died in combat that man was killed
in about 2003 or 2004 He was the last, there was no one
left there any more, he had stayed on his own. They killed the
last one. A vast number of people were killed there.
Following the forced displacements, new peasant

farmer families arrived at Tranquilandia with the
support of the paramilitary umbrella organization, the
United Self-Defence Forces of Colombia (Autodefensas
Unidas de Colombia, AUC). Those new families sought
legal ownership over the lands in Tranquilandia and
convinced INCODER that the previous occupants had
left the area voluntarily. As such, from 2005, INCODER
began assigning the plots of land to these new families.
One peasant farmer displaced from Tranquilandia
explains: The people who are there sent a written report to
INCODER saying that nothing had happened in Tranquilandia,
that we had left because we wanted to In my case, a father
with four children, with a wife, ten years of work striving all
the time, with a well-built house They even put a bomb in
[my house], they burned it down. My sister-in-law they told
her get out, widow, because we are going to kill you it was
the turn of the poor widow. Within the year she too had to
leave, displaced To achieve what we want, which is peace,
there must be truth.
Some of those who had been forcibly displaced
continued to be threatened and had to flee again: We
were in Valledupar we hadnt even been there a month,
when an armed man once again chased me, forcing me to
get into a taxi I had already had to run three times An
uncle of my husband said come to Arauca We arrived in
Arauca on 23 January 2003 [Thats when] I started
receiving treatment there from a psychologist.
In spite of the continued threats, some peasant farmers
tried to return to their land: People started returning
again, and so we started the process of trying to go back to
the land again My father-in-law started going as our
representative to the meetings they [the forcibly displaced
peasant farmers from Tranquilandia] were holding about
Tranquilandia. At one of the meetings he went to in March
Joel Stangle

2005, he was arrested as if he had been an important

guerrilla leader He was detained, the army took him to
a farm that is on the way out, going towards Tranquilandia,
called Casa de Piedra. And they kept him tied up for 36
hours at that time we were displaced, but the intention was
to return, to return that year, we had already been away
two or three years When they released him, they let him go
saying Get out, but dont imagine that you will ever come
back here, to this plot you will never come back here
While he was going through all that, we were being
pressurized into selling the farm, El Oasis farm which was
part of Tranquilandia for 4 million [pesos] [about USD
2,000]. The farm was worth much more, that was what a
hectare was worth at that time, and it was a farm with 23
hectares we were under pressure because they had tied
[my father-in-law] up for 36 hours they pressurized us
into selling the plot of land.
Another peasant farmer had a similar experience: In
2006 I went back to claim my plot of land from the person
who was installed there I told him, no, I am not going to
sell my plot of land [but] they gave me 3 million pesos [about
USD 1,500] and made me go to the notary to sign it was not
a sale, because they gave me what they felt like giving.
A worker on an African palm plantation where some of the

peasant farmers forcibly displaced from Tranquilandia have
found employment.
Very few have been successful in returning to their

former farms: Some returned later, yes. And are still there,
yes. There are about 12 people. Many were too
intimidated to try to return: They had killed some of our
friends, so the truth is that we were then afraid to go there.
Several government and state institutions persuaded
the peasant farmers not to file complaints for the
human rights abuses they suffered, as their families
may be put at risk: I went to file a complaint [at] the
Human Rights Ombudsmans Office and a worker said to me,
Dont open your mouth Your life could be at risk. I did not
file a complaint.
Since the Victims and Land Restitution Law (Law 1448)
came into force in January 2012, peasant farmers who
had lived in Tranquilandia started making requests for
land restitution in different parts of the country. One
Joel Stangle

The school in Tranquilandia, which is now abandoned.
peasant farmer who spoke with Amnesty International

in December 2013 said: So far, the Land [Restitution] Unit
[URT] has not summoned me, either about the plot of land or
the adjoining farm It is all declared I did it as soon as
the land law had been adopted Two years on and they still
have not summoned me They say things are moving
quickly, but we say that they are moving at the speed of a
turtle, going backwards.
In October and November 2013, almost two years after
the first request for land restitution had been filed by a
peasant farmer from Tranquilandia, some families
received resolutions which included them in the
RTDAF. Others are still waiting for the restitution
process to start. On 19 December 2013, the human
rights organizations Permanent Committee for the
Defence of Human Rights (Comit Permanente por la
Defensa de los Derechos Humanos) and Corporacin
Jurdica Yira Castro, who are representing peasant
farmers, presented the judicial action for restitution in

the case of 40 families whose claims had been
included in the RTDAF. The case was still with the
restitution judge at the time of writing. Some of the
families who settled in Tranquilandia after the original
occupants were forcibly displaced are now opponents
in this case.
The land restitution process means that some families
have recently visited their land for the first time since
being displaced. The sight of their once cultivated plots
falling to ruin has been heartbreaking: Theres nothing
there, no house or anything Someone else has it but it has
been left to go to ruin, because no house or anything has
been put up there. Only the school, which is nearby. That is all
that is there, the school.
Claiming land restitution has been a costly endeavour
for the peasant farmers, who have to pay travel costs
and other expenses to meet with the URT. I cant come
here constantly because the Unit has endless meetings and
they dont give us a ticket, not even a bus ticket, they refused
to give me a ticket And how many times have we had

When is the state going to have the,
what should I say, courtesy to go with us

to the land and say we ask for your
forgiveness for what happened?...
meetings at the Unit? Nine meetings! I have had nine but

altogether we have had 21 meetings already Everything is
at our expense, even lunch The Unit hasnt contributed
anything.
But it is not only the expense of travelling that prevents
some peasant farmers attending URT meetings; some
still fear for their lives: Our concern is how are we going
to return to the land when the men who are there say that
they are going to get even with us. And that is already clear.
In Chibolo what happened? What happened in Montera? What
happened in Sincelejo? In Medelln? Nearly every week we
hear news of the murder of a land restitution leader or of a
peasant farmer who was asking for his land back. And we
have been coming to the Unit since the beginning of the year
informing them about this, I started informing them that we
had been receiving threats and that because of that there are
friends of ours, such as [name withheld] who is in Arauca
who does not come here to Aracataca because he fears for
his life. [name withheld] also said the same Because he
has been threatened too.
One peasant farmer described the impact of the
situation on his family, and how the land restitution
process has put him in opposition with his former
neighbour: We are suffering hardship but if we had our
land, our fields, our plot of land, my family would live better,
and my children would complete their schooling, but they
have been unable to carry on studying The man whose son
has the land was a neighbour of mine he had his plot of
land next to mine and he sold his plot and put his son on
mine I have had no contact with him When we were at
the Land Restitution office recently, I met one of his sons.
We just said hello.
Many fear what they will face if they return: We are
afraid that we are going to end up fighting with the same
people We are not going there with the police or with the
army, we are going with international accompaniment, [with]
various international human rights people, we are going to
return to the land. Otherwise we will be easy prey. They will
carry on murdering us.
The peasant farmers are calling on the state to own up
to their responsibility for the human rights violations
they have suffered: When is the state going to have the,
what should I say, courtesy to go with us to the land and say
we ask for your forgiveness for what happened? How is it
possible for the paramilitary to go around where the police
are and where the army is like they own the place and to kill
and so on? The paramilitary commanders said that they
went around with the consent of the security forces, that they
were not alone.
There are also concerns that even if they return, they
will not have the means to work the land: I have read
[Law] 1448 which has 208 articles I have read it, I have gone
through it five times, to see whether I missed something I
havent been able to find. I have not found any article that says
that there will be recognition of, that the state will recognize,
the property I lost, my machinery my animals, my crops. It
says that the land will be recognized, only the land. Because
I am not claiming for the land, I am claiming for what was on
the land which is more than [just] the land itself.
Others fear they will not live long enough to see justice
restored: I think I will die without achieving what I want,
which is to return to the land.
Ultimately, the families want to return to the peace and
tranquillity they briefly enjoyed: We want to be present
there once again, but if so, we want to be left alone. And if the
state starts fighting with the guerrillas, let them and those
devils kill each other and not involve us in that.

We are asking for dignified relocation
EL TAMARINDO
On the outskirts of the city of Barranquilla, Atlntico

Department, in northern Colombia, lies the green and
fertile El Tamarindo farm. Peasant farmer families
forcibly displaced by the armed conflict from other
parts of the country have established themselves here.
But they face losing their homes and livelihoods once
more, and joining the many El Tamarindo peasant
farmers who have already been forcibly evicted. Where
forced evictions have been carried out by the security
forces and armed men, the vegetation has been razed
to the ground. Areas cultivated by the peasant farmers
that were once lush and green have been left barren
by bulldozers.
In the late 1990s, a few families started cutting down
trees to produce charcoal on the land known today as
El Tamarindo. By 2001 they had cleared some of the
area for farming, and over the years some 135 families
arrived, most of them having been forcibly displaced
from their homes in Antioquia, Atlntico, Bolivar, Cesar,
Choc, Crdoba, Magdalena, Santander and Sucre
departments.
A woman peasant farmer recalls how she arrived
in El Tamarindo: I come from the Urab antioqueo,
in the banana-growing area, also dispossessed by the
paramilitaries [In 1995] my husband, the father of my
children, [and] my brother-in-law, who owned a banana smallholding, were taken and tied up They told them: If you get
out today, nothing will happen to you. But if you are here
tomorrow, we will not be answerable for your lives. Thats
how I ended up leaving with nothing Then I came here to
Barranquilla with five kids I was working in the market,

they paid very little, and with that I fed my kids and I paid the
rent, I dont know how I did it A friend who made charcoal
here was the one who told me that there was some
uncultivated land here, and that we as peasant farmers could
live on it because later we would be able to obtain the [land]
title Thats how I found out about El Tamarindo.
Another peasant farmer who made his home in El
Tamarindo remembers: I was displaced from Magdalena
In 97 two brothers of mine were murdered in Magdalena. And
that was when I came here to Barranquilla everything was
peaceful. I got on a bicycle and came. I found my way here
I set up my farm And from then on I gradually tore
down scrubland, sowed seeds, brought animals: dogs, cats,
chickens, pigs. You plant your first little shrub, you carry on
cultivating and then you have food for the first animals.
And that is how your life is.
The 135 families occupied 120 hectares in four areas
of the El Tamarindo farm. In 2008 some of the peasant
farmers working together in El Tamarindo formalized
their relationship creating the Association of Land
Workers (Asociacin de Trabajadores del Campo,
ASOTRACAMPO).
The peasant farmers are very proud of their small plots
of land: After arriving here in El Tamarindo, [I] put body and
soul into the work I got my plot of land looking really nice,
in order to sow it, because that makes you proud. I started
buying chickens and raising them. By the following year I
already had a large brood of chickens the plot of land was
small, one hectare of land We sowed it with bananas
we sowed cassava, we sowed maize, we sowed pumpkin, we
sowed watermelon, we sowed everything. Then we started to
plant trees: guava, mango, loquat, tamarind, prickly custard
apple, guama (ice cream bean), pear, we planted everything.

the one who is taking all this land
away from us says that he will get

us out of here by fair means or foul,
in other words alive or dead.
There was everything sown there on my little plot. You could

pick anything, guineo, popocho, all kinds of bananas, how
proud I was!
In 2007, the state authorities announced that a Free
Trade Zone would be established in an area including
the El Tamarindo farm and, as such, removed its
status as agricultural land in its Plan for Territorial
Organization. In 2008 a local business with links to
the authorities responsible for the Plan for Territorial
Organization began legal proceedings claiming
ownership of the land.
One peasant woman farmer recalls the first attempts to
force them off the land: Overnight it turned out [that there
was an] owner then the eviction orders started coming. An
eviction order came one day We sow and they uproot
That was very hard I am very tired. I have been tired for
seven years. Planting things, making a home and everything
being demolished There has been too much sorrow, too
much anguish.
Since 2009, there have been repeated attempts to
forcibly evict those living in El Tamarindo, some of
them successful. The safeguards required by
international law have not been put in place prior to
any of the evictions. For instance, those evicted have
not received adequate notice, and the areas affected
by the eviction are not properly identified, leading to
forced evictions of areas which were not in the eviction
order.
According to Colombian human rights organizations,
the eviction orders have been obtained by powerful
economic interests claiming ownership of the land.
The forced evictions in El Tamarindo have been
executed by the Barranquilla District administrative
state authorities and accompanied by the district

ombudsmans office, the army, police including the
military police and the anti-riot police (ESMAD) and
armed men. During the evictions, the peasant farmers
have been threatened by armed men.
One peasant farmer remembers: I was evicted on 11
January [2013] they flattened part of [the plot] they tore up
all my crops, cassava, maize, bananas, fruit trees They
came and used the machine on it, they went around pulling
everything up, people with machetes, they pulled everything
up and put up a fence. That was on the first part of the land
where I was There were police, there was ESMAD, there
were public officials after carrying out the eviction they
put the army there. They stayed there. In the part that had
been cleared armed civilians stayed there on the land
itself together with the army, the ones on the outside were us,
the peasant farmers, the farmhands.
A few months later, the same farmer faced another
forced eviction: The second part was on 19 April [2013].
Altogether, in the area where I was they evicted around 11
families In the morning there was the army and armed
bailiffs, armed civilians, paramilitaries as they are known
Armed civilians arrived at 5 oclock in the morning backed
up by the army, and using a machine they went about
demolishing what were the sheds for the birds, the chickens,
the hens. They demolished the house. They ended up
destroying the rest of the crops I had, they stole a few
chickens, tools, work tools, they stole them from me. They
covered over a well, a fish pond, where I had fish. They went
and stripped away the scrubland where the banana trees
were and the shed they threw into the well It was one
hectare and a bit it was all planted up I had guava, there
were 60 guava trees, 45 mango trees, and so on. There was
also guama, about five guama trees, about 10 lemon trees,
there were 20 cocoa trees. They destroyed all of them.
Amnesty International

A peasant farmers home in El Tamarindo prior to a forced

eviction.
The forced evictions not only caused the loss of the

livelihood of the peasant farmer families, but also
caused fear and anxiety, particularly due to the
presence of armed men and state officials, echoing
some of their earlier experiences of forced
displacement: On 7 November [2013], in order to evict the
28 families, including mine they brought those people,
about 700 people to evict us, all the leyes [law enforcement
officials] from Barranquilla sent to El Tamarindo, which was
frightening, it was like in a film. What for? To take away from
us what we had achieved by working hard There we had
planted our banana trees, papaya trees, there we had planted

cassava trees, we had planted everything Because we are
not wealthy people. They come only because they have power
in the world. To destroy and kill everything we have.
Another explained: I came here, to El Tamarindo and I
was once again practically displaced. Because they destroyed
all my crops. I used to take my produce out there on the
roadside. I took bananas, cassava, melons, beans, kidney
beans I used to sell them right there.
On 7 November 2013, 28 families were forcibly evicted
from their land in the Beitjala area of the El Tamarindo
farm by police, including anti-riot police. Three people
were injured and taken to hospital following the forced
eviction. The peasant farmer families lost their

livelihoods when they lost their crops and some of their

animals. The forced eviction came a few days after
death threats by the paramilitary group RastrojosComandos Urbanos Barranquilla, which named some
of the leaders of ASOTRACAMPO and declared them
a military target.1
Parallel to the forced evictions, a group of armed men,
suspected of being paramilitaries linked to business
interests in the area, have repeatedly threatened to kill
peasant farmers living in El Tamarindo. One of the El
Tamarindo community leaders explained: We are in a
very, very bad situation here in El Tamarindo we are under
threat The other day a bag of dead toads appeared in my
house. I dont know how many toads there were in it They
threw that bag there. Later a motorbike came after me with
Remains of a peasant farmer home in El Tamarindo after a

forced eviction.
two people on it and they were police in plain clothes,

although they did not identify themselves, they were civilian
police. And that has been my experience here in El Tamarindo,
trying to look after my dignity and the dignity of my friends
We have filed a complaint [but] nothing has happened, or will
happen, because it was a poor person who complained. If a
poor person complains, who is going to take any notice of
him? Thats how thing are here in Colombia we dont have
rights even to life. Because if we had the right to life, they
wouldnt treat us like they do.

You dont feel as though you have a life,
you feel as though you are being destroyed,

because that is what they are doing to us
here. Destroying us every day.
Another inhabitant of El Tamarindo told Amnesty

International: We are living here with the enemy inside
at all hours a high-capacity motorbike goes by, cars come
and go, we dont know. The other day a car drew up here, the
windows were lowered three people were picked up and it
turned around and left the man came here at 8 oclock at
night, we were already in bed and he turns up, sits down and
says nothing, and we are here, total intimidation The
threats are constant, the intimidation is constant. We are very
anxious living here we sleep just a few metres away from
the enemy We go out to do our errands, we go anxiously,
we cannot come back on to the land after 5 oclock in the
afternoon, we cannot travel around anywhere because we
are anxious, because we are under threat and we are afraid
because those people are narco-paramilitaries [drug
trafficking paramilitaries] and we are vulnerable because
of all this and the power that they have is criminal We have
filed complaints with all the government bodies, the AttorneyGenerals Office, the Procurators Office, the Presidency but
so far we have not received any replies.
the back of the head. When they came to remove the body,
they were wearing uniforms consisting of white overalls that
said SIJIN [judicial and investigative police]. They removed
the body and a member of SIJIN came and said at last they
killed that nasty piece of work Afterwards a friend said to
me come and look. The bullet that had passed through his
cheek and out through the back of his head was lying on the
mattress. And so we picked it up. The DIJIN [judicial police]
came from Bogot, they took the bullet away, but it has not
yet been identified. Since then we have felt unsafe around
here, because the threats are still continuing. Two areas
where the other peasant farmers were have already been
taken away from us.
On 12 April 2013, Narciso Enrique Tehrn Meja, the

son of the vice-president of ASOTRACAMPO, was shot
dead as he slept in his home in El Tamarindo.2 Criminal
investigations into his killing have not advanced. His
father remembers: Threats were made against me, they
called me on the telephone at 10 oclock at night, that was in
March, they told me that he had paid 500,000 pesos [about
USD 255] for my head the one who is taking all this land
away from us who says that he will get us out of here by
fair means or foul, in other words alive or dead. Well, the
threats continued, they called me, not just me, all of the
leadership The day they killed my son he was drinking
I was told that they plied him with drinks and got him drunk.
That was on 12 April. He came here to the farm, I wasnt here,
I was working outside I got here at 12 noon, and he was
dead. With a bullet in the right cheek which went out through
The constant threat of imminent forced eviction has

taken its toll on the families: I was going to kill myself
with a gas cylinder Because what is the point of living if
you no longer have a life? They dont let you, you cant eat in
peace [Every few days] an eviction order comes you
dont have a life. What kind of life can a human being have
when things are like that? You dont feel as though you have a
life, you feel as though you are being destroyed, because that
is what they are doing to us here. Destroying us every day.
Between 9 November 2013 and 10 March 2014,

members of the II Brigade of the military police set up
a post on the El Tamarindo farm. During a visit by an
Amnesty International delegation in December 2013,
the military police and other armed men were seen
together undertaking joint patrols.
The peasant farmers have protested and tried to

negotiate a solution with local authorities: We held a
march on 17 October [2013], a peasant farmer protest.
Peasants from several regions of the coast went with us on
the protest, there were about 1,000 people on it. We went
to the governors office. We then spent two days with the

governor, a formal note, an agreement was drawn up there in

which a permanent working group was going to be set up for
El Tamarindo, to find a solution to the problems there.
In the negotiations the governor promised that there
would be no further efforts to forcibly evict the families
and instead committed to a process of ensuring that
the families would be provided with alternative land
and a process of resettlement.
On 7 February 2014 a meeting took place between the
local office of the Human Rights Ombudsman, the
UARIV, the alleged owner of the Campo Natasha area
of El Tamarindo, and 18 families who have been
recognized as victims of the conflict by the UARIV.
They agreed that the families would either receive 1
hectare of suitable cultivable land elsewhere or 3
million pesos [about USD 1,530]. The meeting took
place without the community leaders or the Colombian
NGOs who have been accompanying the peasant
farmers. A couple of days later, the families of El
Tamarindo rejected the proposal as they believed the
land was worth more than the 3 million pesos offered.
But they suggested that the money could be
Joint post of the military police and armed men on El

Tamarindo land from which peasant farmers have been
forcibly evicted.
recognized as a payment for improving the value of the

land through the work they carried out (mejoras)3. They
also clarified that it was not an agreement of
resettlement.
Despite these talks, on 21 March 2014, 43 families
were forcibly evicted from the Campo Natasha area.4
The families and the human rights defenders working
with them were threatened.5 The forced eviction was
ordered by the Barranquilla mayor and was carried out
in the presence of police, ESMAD and unidentified
armed men thought to be paramilitaries. None of the
safeguards against forced eviction, as required by
international law, were put in place prior to the eviction.
Civilians, ordered by armed men, destroyed crops and
family homes in the presence of the police and local
authorities.

On 13 April 2014 the peasant farmers of El Tamarindo

declared El Mirador, the only part of the farm from
which they have not yet been forcibly evicted, a
Humanitarian Refuge of Peace and Hope as part
of a strategy of protection and to prevent further
forced evictions.
Following the forced evictions, some of the peasant
farmer families have moved to the city and are facing
new hardships: There are my three children, my wife and I,
and two grandchildren whom I am responsible for. Right now
we are living in a single room all of us. A single room, in the
city [Barranquilla] We have been left up in the air. We are
just drifting about, with what you can get for a days work. On
the days when you cant get work, you are in a bad way, it is
bad because you dont have enough money for food And
also you are not used to the city.
As former peasant farmers, they are facing the
unfamiliar challenges of living in the city: What does
a person who knows nothing of the city do to survive? What
does he do? At this age what can I live from? The only
solution is my stock-rearing, my animals. My plants, my crops.
That is what I can do and it is what I am used to doing.
Although the issue of forced evictions is not directly
linked to the land restitution process under the Victims
and Land Restitution Law (Law 1448), the peasant
farmers of El Tamarindo have sought to use some of
the mechanisms created by Law 1448, such as
sending a representative from El Tamarindo to the local
land sub-committee to address their situation. Local
and regional authorities have the power and
responsibility to resolve their situation.
Some of the families of El Tamarindo may be eligible to
claim land restitution under Law 1448. However, that
could mean returning to the land where they previously

suffered the trauma of forced displacement, instead of
asserting their right to the land where they have rebuilt
their lives. The land restitution process should give the
families of El Tamarindo the certainty that they will not
have to leave their land again, and that they can live in
dignity with all their basic human rights respected.
As one former peasant farmer put it: So we are in
negotiations with the Mayors Office, the Governors Office
and the Victims Committee The only solution would be to
relocate us. Which is what we are asking for, dignified
relocation. To be on a plot of land and not have to run away
because it is going to be destroyed For the government to
say, look, there are some hectares of land, work there, live
there, die there on that land. From [this land] we should have
the means with which to carry on feeding ourselves
Dignified relocation means the right to study, the right to
health, the right to work. Roads, electricity, services and
decent housing. That is dignified relocation the right to
work means land.

I believe those plots of land belong to us,

because we have always worked them
and we are always going to be there
EL PORVENIR
For about half a century the vast savannah of El

Porvenir, in Puerto Gaitn Municipality, Meta
Department, has been used by local families so that
their cattle could be fed with the pasture. As one
inhabitant from the area recounts: For about 45 to 50
years we have been working these lands with cattle we
have always had over 800 or 1,000 head of cattle here.
In the 1960s, a man named Vctor Machado claimed
ownership of the land. The families continued to use
the land collectively with his acquiescence: Mr Vctor
Machado was the one who left us part of the land where the
village is he marked off a piece it was on condition that
the people could live there too.
Vctor Machado died in 1979, reportedly leaving some
of the land to the people of El Porvenir. However in 1986
his widow sold the improvements (mejoras) to the land
of part of El Porvenirto Vctor Carranza, one of the
countrys most powerful emerald entrepreneurs the
so-called emerald tsar and a well-known paramilitary
leader, and to an associates son. One of the peasant
farmers remembers: When [Vctor Machado] died, that
was when Vctor Carranza bought it and from then on the
people started having problems murders and killings
They did it to put pressure on people to leave the place From
the time he bought it, people began to work with fear.
Another peasant farmer recalls: There were 200-300
armed men there They were men who worked for
Carranza Paramilitaries The problem started because
they put individuals as messengers [to watch] what people
were doing, what work they were doing, how they ate, what
they ate, what they ate from.
The presence of paramilitaries caused a forced
displacement: We had to abandon the village. They kept on
killing. That time they killed 10 people [in] September 1987
What happened was that they gathered the people
together, from among them they killed those 10, they killed
them about 50 metres away from where the people were
gathered And so, of course, people were extremely
frightened and that was when they left.
Some time later, the son of one of the victims of the
massacre was also killed: they killed a boy I think it was
in 2010 I think he was about 19 or 20 years old Born and
brought up there in El Porvenir [his name was] Daro Cortes.
And his father was also killed in that massacre [in] 87.
The peasant farmers also experienced forced
disappearances: There had already been several forced
disappearances because there were people who went
missing, no one could explain it, even including a minor who
lived there, he disappeared too.
Over the years there were numerous attempts to force
the families off the land: Those paramilitary groups
arrived there and practically controlled the area They also
fought the guerrillas because a few kilometres away from
there, there were guerrillas too But we were also subjected
to abuses and humiliation they used to say you have to
leave because we dont want to see you round here. The
people had to leave they had to get out In 2010 some
paramilitary groups also threatened me.
Most of the peasant farmers did not return following
the forced displacement in 1987: Some people
abandoned the place. Really, they were displaced, they left

We had to abandon the village.

They kept on killing.
everything lying there and went The village itself, was

made up by those who returned after one or two months
But, anyway, the village was terrifiedThe paramilitaries
that were there in the village, it all belonged to them. Before
the displacement about 400 families lived in El Porvenir.
Only about 100 families returned, most of them a few
months after they had been forcibly displaced.
Presidents of the local Community Action Councils
(Junta de Accin Comunal, JAC) have been targeted
and killed.6 One former JAC president recalled the
killing of Lus Len, president of the JAC of the
neighbouring hamlet of Matarratn, on 28 September
2013: I stood down [from being president of the JAC] and
others took over because perhaps it might happen to you,
thats what happened with the guy they killed in Matarratn
recently. He had been threatened and they killed him. Lus
Len was not the first JAC president to be killed:
[There was a killing] in 2005 and another in about 2007. That
was also in El Porvenir. One was killed in Casanare. And the
other, yes, it was in 2007 very near our village. About 6km
away His body turned up there. With three bullet holes.
Even though El Porvenir lies in a resource-rich area,
the presence of extractive industries has not benefitted the
people of El Porvenir: Road access is very precarious,
very difficult The municipal authorities dont work with us very
much, even necessities such as public services, for example, the
water supply is poor, we barely get about four hours electricity
And it is a very poor community the only thing we have to
support us is the cattle and they want to cut us off from
that. Due to the difficult situation, including the constant
threats and the lack of services, out of the 100 families
who returned, around 30 have since gone elsewhere.
At one stage the peasant farmers of El Porvenir tried to
obtain land titles via INCORA: At one point a group
was set up, it was called a co-operative, a group of people to

be able to acquire the land titles. And the one who was at the
head of those things was a man called Gustavo Grajales. When
that person had gathered together all the data, all the issues,
papers and everything, he disappeared He was allegedly
[forcibly] disappeared. Because they knew that he was working
on the INCORA stuff [At] one point I was president of the
JAC in El Porvenir and I made some inquiries to find out what
had happened with the papers, in order to go and sort out the
land title a man from [INCORA] told me, Look, here on
the desk is all the documentation to go to El Porvenir to
measure the land, but I am not going there because they
will kill me. And thats how things have been left up to now.
In 1992, INCORA assigned 25 plots of land to new
families, and in 1996 a further two plots. The families
who already lived in El Porvenir did not know the
families who received the land titles: [There are] 27
[who allegedly] are from those specific plots Other
people We dont even know them it is said that they
falsified documents. There is nothing reliable, because we
went and did a site inspection. Nobody appeared, nobody told
us this is our property.
As part of the process to assign the land in 1992 there
was a site inspection of the plots by INCORA. It was
found that even though the land was currently being
used, none of those being considered for the
assignment of the 27 plots were present on the land. It
is alleged that many of the people who were
beneficiaries of the assignment of the plots had links to
Vctor Carranza. One of the peasant farmers recalled:
They went to [INCORA], [and] as they have money, they
covered up [the truth] with money We are going to give
you so many millions and we are going to divide it all up into
farms Since what the paramilitaries were doing was so
violent, they themselves, from that same family, practically

Corporacin Jurdica Yira Castro
got it all allocated. The system they have is that they have a
lot of state land and virtually no legal titles. And so Mr
Vctor [Carranza] used strawmen to each one he gave
a piece of land so that they got the title. And once it was all
legalized, then he obtained [the plots] as if through sale
and so then [they became] legalized plots of land and they
could do what they wanted with them.
In December 2007, the 27 plots were illegally joined to
form five sections of land: El Rincn, Las Corocoras, Mi
Llanura, El Pedregal and Campo Hermoso. Days later, the
land was sold to five new owners. The legality of the sale
has been questioned, including on the basis that some
of the people who allegedly sold the land were dead.
In 2008, INCODER initiated a process to clarify the
ownership of part of the land in El Porvenir, including
La Portuguesa, La Caviona, Las Corocoras and El
Rincn. The process concluded in 2010 when
INCODER found that although some of the land was
private property and belonged to Ganaderia La
Cristalina, a company owned by the family of Vctor
Carranza and others, they could not confirm that the
cattle-grazing areas La Portuguesa and La Caviona
were private properties. In the course of the
clarification process, the peasant farmers of El Porvenir
requested information from INCODER and other
government and state entities about the process: we
asked INCODER for clarification. INCODER answered by
saying that there was nothing further to be done I
sent documentation to INCODER to the Human Rights
Ombudsmans Office, in Bogot. I even sent some official
letters to the Ministry of Defence, informing them of what was
happening in the community, because they have always
hounded us Then they replied to me saying that no, there
was nothing to be done because now it was all practically
private property and thats how it was left.
Cattle grazing in El Porvenir
The peasant farmers continue to receive repeated threats

from those who claim ownership of the land to force
them to take their cattle off the land: For example, this
past week, on Tuesday or Wednesday, they came here telling us
that we had to remove the cattle and that it is now a final
order. They fear that these are efforts by those claiming
ownership to strip them of their livelihood, which will
force them to leave their land: Right now we are under
pressure to get the cattle removed, and so we would have
no other option but to leave because it is the only source
[of income] we have. And if this goes ahead, then we would
have to move away. Because how would we make a living? If
the peasant farmers stop grazing their cattle on the land,
they may also lose their right to use it in the future.
Starting in 2005, people of El Porvenir began receiving
visits, and later letters, from representatives of

Claretiano de Investigacin y Educacin Popular

because what they want is for you to remove the cattle so

that you lose possession. And there have been cattle here for
a long time, for 45 years. We would lose what we have done.
Abandoned police station in El Porvenir
Ganadera La Cristalina, warning them that the grazing

area was private property and therefore they had to
remove their cattle. One peasant farmer recalled:
there was one person, and just now another has arrived, a
man [who said he is from] Ganadera La Cristalina Its a
company They say it belongs to Vctor Carranza.
Such efforts to force the people of El Porvenir to take
their cattle off their land, including from the cattlegrazing area of La Caviona, have often been focused on
the JAC presidents: I was president of the JAC in 2008,
2009, 2010 the administrator from Caviona came from
Matarratn with a committee from INCODER. Because Matarratn
is a village adjoining ours, before it was the same land, but
then there was a meeting and the land was split up they are
also under the same kind of pressure because they want to
take their plots of land away and they are fighting it And so
they arrived, having drunk several beers, they summoned me as
the president, they gave me a note asking me to tell the people
that they had two weeks to remove their cattle. I responded
by saying, Sir, I am happy to pass on the message because
that is my duty, but I cannot promise you that the people will
remove the cattle because they have undergone proceedings
and have possession [over the land]. I read out the message
[to the peasant farmers] and said Dont remove the cattle,
In June 2012 the people of El Porvenir, the

Congressman Ivn Cepeda and the human rights
organization Corporacin Jurdica Yira Castro filed a
request with INCODER to revoke the land titles for the
27 new plot owners, as well as the ruling on the
clarification of the land title from 2010.
In September 2013 a commission from INCODER
came to investigate the land where the titles had been
questioned. Several months after the visit of the INCODER
commission, the peasant farmers recalled: They [the
INCODER] told us that there are five properties on which we
[the peasant farmers] are working and that land is practically
ours because we are the ones who are working it During that
site inspection we walked across all of the land I dont
know what they have decided. But we are there, I believe [that]
those plots of land belong to us, because they are ours. We have
always worked them and we are always going to be there.
The people of El Porvenir were hopeful that this time
INCODER would find in their favour: they have told us
that there is a right now And perhaps, after working those
plots of land for so many years, there is [a right of] possession.
Indeed more than two years after the request was filed,
on 30 July 2014, INCODER issued a resolution revoking
the 27 land titles. The role of the state institutions in the
false adjudication is not questioned in the resolution.
The peasant farmers of El Porvenir are seeking to
obtain a title for El Porvenir under Law 160 of 1994
rather than Law 1448, since they hope this will lead to
a speedier resolution of their land claim since the
process under Law 160 is already well advanced.

Following the resolution from INCODER there are fears

for the safety of the families of El Porvenir as they have
to prove that they are living on the land and using it to
gain legal rights on the land through Law 160. If efforts
to remove their cattle are successful their claims of
ownership over the lands of El Porvenir could be
seriously undermined.
Peasant farmer homes in El Porvenir
they continue to face powerful opponents who are

claiming their land.
One of the leaders of El Porvenir received a number of

telephone death threats in May 2014. One of these
calls, on 15 May, ordered him to present himself to the
organization because the organization had
received some unspecified complaints against him. In
another call, on 16 May, the unidentified caller gave
him 48 hours to leave the area.
Today in El Porvenir, many of the houses left empty after

the forced displacement are still abandoned: There are
still many houses left alone there, rooms falling down, because
the owners did not return. There has hardly been any
development since that man [Vctor Carranza] turned up round
there. There is therefore absolute poverty Because no one
wants to go back there, because you are asking to be killed
there is that terror no one wants to go and live there.
Vctor Carranza died in April 2013. Parts of his estate

of allegedly 1 million some say 2 million hectares of
land are under investigation due to the illegal
procedures involved in obtaining the land. His heirs are
in dispute with each other over his properties. This has
not had much impact on the people of El Porvenir, as
The peasant farmers of El Porvenir live in the hope that

they will one day be recognized as the rightful inhabitants
of their land, and be left in peace to rebuild their homes
and graze their cattle, free from the threats, forced
displacement, killings and enforced disappearances that
have overshadowed their existence in recent decades.

I shirk bullets, but not work
EL CARPINTERO
In December 1997, 85 families from different parts of

Colombia arrived in El Carpintero, Cabuyaro Municipality,
Meta Department. As one new arrival put it: We didnt
know each other but, thank God, we got along well.
Some of the families were victims of forced displacement.
One peasant farmer, who had been forcibly displaced from
Cesar Department, told how he arrived in El Carpintero:
I ended up being displaced in June 97. They killed a friend
of mine And that day they were going to kill me too. It was
the paramilitaries in complicity with the police I went to
Bogot Then I went to the Human Rights Ombudsmans Office
[and] I reported everything. I couldnt say that it was the
paramilitaries who displaced me, because they were linked with
the police and every day there was a policeman going up and
down outside, and so I said I didnt know which group it was
And from there they sent me with this packet [of documents]
to the Interior Ministry I asked for help for the farm in
Sierra Nevada, to go there. I was told that the only thing I
could do was go to INCORA The man [from INCORA] told me:
Look, the only way I can help you is there is some land that
has been divided into plots at El Carpintero and I can help you
get a plot there.
Others were relocated to El Carpintero because they
had left their land due to natural disasters: I come from
Huila Department. But I have been living here [in Meta
Department] for about 30 years I was a victim [of a natural
disaster] there were some landslides A professional
came to the town and suggested to us [that] we ask
INCORA to relocate us The community appointed me as its
representative to INCORA at that time in order to sort out the
formalities required to get relocated. [The relocation was for]

one group, not all of us. Because there wasnt enough land for
everyone. But people were selected there was a problem
because we were in a political campaigning period there
were irregularities. That was how there was an infiltration of
people who signed deeds but were never on the land.
At that time, it was INCORA who gave us that plot of land [in
El Carpintero] over there in Cabuyaro they relocated us
there. And so we went over there. [There] were 45 who were
displaced, the other 40 were victims [of natural disasters].
Altogether there were 85 of us First some arrived, and then
others came. And so on. There were some who never arrived.
Among those who never arrived were four families from
Cesar Department in Northern Colombia, who did not
have the means to travel to Meta Department in Central
Colombia.
They had been given a collective land title for El
Carpintero by the INCORA, under Law 160 of 1994,
receiving a subsidy for 70% of the land and a credit to
pay the remaining 30%, as well as an agricultural project.
It is not clear how many families took possession of the
land. Due to the fact that several families included
in the collective land title did not turn up, those who
arrived were not given funding for an agricultural
project. However, they made the best of the situation,
as one peasant farmer explains: They were going to give
us [an agricultural] project but they never even gave it to us.
We couldnt work how we wanted because some people hadnt
arrived and if they didnt come, then they couldnt give us
the project. [But] we really worked ourselves to the bone,
because in the end we said, well, we are each going to work
a plot, a hectare of subsistence crops. One planted
watermelon. The one who planted watermelon, also planted
bananas, prickly custard apple, pumpkin, and so on and
Corporacin Claretiana Norman Prez Bello Centro Claretiano de Investigacin y Educacin Popular.

thats what everyone did. Of the group that was with us, each
one applied themselves in their little plot, they went and
worked there. When we arrived, everything was good They
gave us the title but as a collective.
Members of the armed forces accompanying INCODER
When the peasant farmers first arrived, there were

already rumours of armed actors in the area. The area of
El Carpintero was in the influence zone of paramilitaries
linked to Vctor Carranza. Between February and March
1998, a large group of paramilitaries arrived in the area
and established their base near El Carpintero. When
this paramilitary group arrived they began calling for
meetings It was a way of pressuring [us], and as the
representative they called me, they looked for me and
they summoned me to meetings.
forcibly displaced and accusing them of having links

with guerrilla forces. They also carried out forced
recruitments: In the case of my sister-in-law, she left
because they were looking for a lot of people She told
me Im leaving because one of my sons wants to join a
paramilitary group. They have often tried to get him to do so.
I dont want to see him doing that, its better if I leave [the
land] to go to waste, or I sell it, or give it away, or whatever.
The paramilitary group not only controlled the territory

but also carried out social control by threatening those
who had come to El Carpintero after they had been
officials during a visit to El Carpintero.
Another peasant farmer recalls: They told us we are the

self-defence forces [paramilitaries]. And once they came
and they gathered us together. They had us there on
average about half an hour, not long. One time they went
around searching and searching. We didnt know what they
were looking for After a little while they started returning

once again I wasnt there. I was working out there on my
hectare of land. I was putting up a fence and clearing around
That day I was caught out by time and when I left, it was dark.
When I arrived, I heard some cars leaving. When I saw my
brother crying I asked him brother, why are you crying?
He told me. No, brother. They arrived and they were coming
for you. They came for you, they didnt say your name or
anything, but they pointed to the house where you live. Asking
where is that person?Things had got serious, I wasnt
going to stay there waiting for them to kill me, I was leaving.

Claretiano de Investigacin y Educacin Popular.

Edwin Alcides Duran Pea was shot in the head and killed
on 10 July 2012. His grandfather is campaigning for land
restitution in El Carpintero.
Some of the peasant farmers went to Bogot to file a

complaint with the Human Rights Ombudsmans
Office denouncing the recent paramilitary incursion.
According to a member of the community, a couple
of days later the paramilitaries arrived in El Carpintero
with a list of names and a copy of the complaint
looking for those who had denounced them to the
authorities.
In September 1998 the peasant farmer Omer Vargas
Retamoza was forcibly disappeared: They killed Omer
VargasThey summoned him and gave him beer and got
him drunk and ordered him to go to sleep. Later on, at about
1 or 2 oclock in the morning, they dragged him out and
disappeared him Many of the neighbours here They
saw him, when they beat him, when they tied his hands and
threw him into a truck To this day no one knows where
he is. The enforced disappearance was reported to
the authorities in Villavicencio, the capital of Meta
Department; however, the case was closed without
resolution. Omer Vargas Retamoza is reported to have
been buried in a mass grave.
Following the enforced disappearance of Omar Vargas
Retamoza, many of those previously forcibly displaced
fled yet again: People gradually started to leave [El

Carpintero] as they started feeling [the paramilitaries]
presence, people went away There was no project there,
there was nothing. People left because they were hungry,
they were in need, because of all the problems and all the
pressure from those people, which on top of everything else
was worse. People were afraid. In October 1998, 13 of
those who had to flee from El Carpintero wrote
informing the Human Rights Director of the Interior
Ministry about the forced displacement.
On 7 September 1999, paramilitaries announced that
they were looking for community leaders Fabio Lugo
Capera, Antonio Moncada, Oswaldo Guerrero and Oliva
Gamboa. They succeeded in locating Fabio Lugo
Capera, whom they abducted and later killed.7
One of those who fled was told by a relative: We thought
they had killed you The day you left, they arrived at 5
oclock in the afternoon and then they turned everything
upside down. He explained: [It was] the paramilitaries.
They turned everything upside down on the farm and told
Corporacin Claretiana Norman Prez Bello Centro Claretiano de Investigacin y Educacin Popular.

them that if they were lying, that if we were there, they would
kill everyone. The children, they had no compassion for
anyone the women started running away, they fell over
others were urinating from fear, it was a disaster. And they
took the place over. What could we do there?
Some of those forcibly displaced from El Carpintero
tried to file a complaint: We left. We went to Villavicencio.
We stayed the night there because there was nowhere else to
go The next day we went to talk to [INCORA]They told
us nothing there. Nothing. Then we went to file a
complaint The man who had received it said Brother, do
you have family there? Yes, sir. He said, I can receive the
complaint. But if I do so, by the time I have taken your
complaint, your family will have already been killed there.
Where are you going to go next? I told him, We are going to
Bogot. He said, File the complaint in Bogot. But do it when
they have left there, because if not, they will kill them all.
Crossing of the river Meta, one of two ways to reach El

Carpintero; the other route is via an unpaved road.
Given these experiences, those who have fled El

Carpintero are too fearful to return: How could we go
there? And how can we go there now? If they give us
protection, then, yes, we will go there.
Yet, in spite of the threats, some of the peasant farmers
remain on the land. Not everyone left. There were still
some people there I dont know now whether they have had
to leave. But I think there are still some people, some [victims
of forced] displacement, others who had been victims [of
natural disasters], there on that land.
One of those who still remains explained: I arrived on
27 December 97. I received the land as well as the deed
Corporacin Claretiana Norman Prez Bello Centro Claretiano de Investigacin y Educacin Popular

Bus service to Cabuyaro Municipality. Paramilitaries

frequently stopped the bus and removed passengers who
were subsequently forcibly disappeared or killed.
and I stayed I was alright because the paramilitaries

did not pick on me. They simply asked me to give them
information, about who was coming and who wasnt [and]
what they were like.
Those who were forced to flee suffered additional
hardship: We stayed here in the city of Bogot where we
endured great need. Sometimes we had to go to ask for
food to be able to eat. Then after a while the Red Cross gave
us a little help and we lived like that. Many were not used
to life in the city and some cannot read or write: Here
in the city I dont know how to work. For example if I am given
an address, I have to find someone else to take me there or
keep asking until I get there. When I was here in Bogot, I
lost jobs because I didnt know the addresses.
INCORA did not recognize the forced displacement of

those who had fled: We started to lodge complaints with
[INCORA] that we had not left because we were shirkers I
told them I shirk bullets, but not work because I believe that
I am very hard-working. Instead, INCORA sent new
people to El Carpintero: People say that they sent around
35 families there to replace those who had left I dont know
whether they were given titles but the ones who had the
signed deeds of those farms were us. [We were] the first ones
who went to live there.
Some of the peasant farmers believe that the new
families were sent by INCORA in an effort to cover up
what was happening in El Carpintero: It was as if they
were trying to cover up the fact that there was a very
strong atmosphere there, given the pressure one
statement that INCORA put out said we are already solving the
first El Carpintero, we are now sending 30 families there and
we are going to set up projects for them.
Most of the second wave of families who arrived were also
forced to flee: Of those they sent, one woman

Things had got serious, I wasnt going

to stay there waiting for them to kill
me, I was leaving.
remained The rest left. They also left because of the

pressure from the paramilitaries there and they also left
because there was nothing there, not a single project there
was nothing to do.
A few families of the initial group requested relocation:
Relocate us somewhere else because we cannot be there, or
if not give us protection so that we can be there. But there
was a price to pay for relocation; the peasant farmers
were urged to resign their rights to El Carpintero to be
eligible for relocation.
There was also an outstanding debt linked to the credit
for 30% of the value of the land from the initial
resettlement: Later on, they started with the debt question.
That we had to pay and we said [to ourselves] we cant afford
to pay. We have no money, we are just peasant farmers and
at least, in my case, I am a peasant farmer, I cant read, here
in the city I get lost. I need to be there in the countryside
working. [They] said we owed 80 million pesos [about USD
40,000] per family. That if we didnt pay it, then we would
go to prison. We said, but we cant afford to pay each
family was left with a debt of 80 million pesos because we
hadnt paid for I dont know what. And so we said no. How are
we going to be able to pay that?
In spite of the efforts of the peasant farmers, they
continue to be forcibly displaced without land to work
on: The last thing [the authorities] told us was we know
nothing [about El Carpintero] and so here we all are, hidden
away here, saying nothing [We] left there because we were
displaced. We are displaced.
When the Victims and Land Restitution Law (Law
1448) came into force in January 2012, displaced
families from El Carpintero started filing requests for
land restitution at different local offices of the URT. In
September 2012, the URT issued resolutions that

some of the families land claims were admissible for
restitution under Law 1448. On 29 November 2012, 42
of the families were included in the RTDAF, although
25 other families from El Carpintero were excluded
after the URT argued that, among other things, that
they had never lived in El Carpintero or had not been
forcibly displaced. Some of these families have been
left with no option but to become opponents in the
case.
In November 2013, some of the lawyers representing
the claimants included in the RTDAF presented the
judicial actions for land restitution to a restitution judge
in Villavicencio. Some judicial actions by opponents
were presented in March 2014. However, there have
yet to be any rulings in this case. Since there are
opponents in the case, the restitution judge will need to
transfer it to a restitution magistrate in Bogot for
adjudication.
As a result of their campaign for land restitution under
Law 1448 some families involved in this process, who
had been forcibly displaced from El Carpintero by the
paramilitaries, have subsequently been threatened. On
10 July 2012, Edwin Alcides Duran Pea, the
grandson of a community leader, was killed in El
Carpintero.
One community leader began receiving threats in 2013
after he went to the URT on behalf of other peasant
farmers claiming land restitution. He himself had been
living in El Carpintero until then but was forced out
after the threats: The first call I got was after I filed the
complaint with the Land Restitution Unit Exactly four days
later they called me They said We dont want to see you
on El Carpintero land, you are a snitch, you brought the Land

He said, I can receive the complaint.
But if I do so, by the time I have taken

your complaint, your family will have
already been killed there.
Restitution Unit here. We dont want to know, and so you will

see what happens. There is a pistol pointed at your head. I
called the police I have had seven different telephone calls
from them. He left El Carpintero and now only goes there for
one or two days at a time to work the land: I live here in
Villavicencio since I started getting problems about two
years ago I came here from the farm. And so I go to the
farm, I work for two or three days and I come back. But the
workers there accompany me and when I am leaving,
sometimes the police are there watching for me at the exit.
He subsequently faced further attacks and threats.8
The land restitution process with the URT provided an
opportunity for some to revisit their land: Since we
started taking the necessary steps [with the URT] we have
been to the farm, we have paid visits We have also spent
time there. We stayed a week or two weeks about a year
ago now, I think. We were there, we showed them where
we had worked. We showed them where we used to live and
everything. But so far they havent said to us, OK, everything
is in order for you to go there, or we are going to exchange
that farm, or we are going to give you another in
exchange.
The forced displacement of peasant farmers from El
Carpintero may have been motivated by efforts to
secure lands in an area of potential economic
importance. Meta Department has been earmarked for
the development of African palm oil production since
the early 2000s. In addition, two companies were given
oil concession explorations in areas adjacent or
potentially overlapping El Carpintero lands in the late
2000s. When the land restitution process of El
Carpintero was advertized in the newspapers, oil palm
businesses turned up as opponents to the peasant
farmers claim. Some of the peasant farmers have
started planting palm and selling it to the palm oil
companies: I set up my project in 2006 I said I am

going to plant palms because there was nothing else to do,
and they supported me and I was OK.
Amongst the opponents in the land restitution process
are also those linked to a family that started buying the
land from the other families, often at very low prices.
This led to an illegal accumulation of land, as it exceed
the minimum amount of land the so-called UAF, a
unit of measurement equal to the amount of land
needed by a family to ensure their livelihood. One
opponent in the land restitution claim is in possession
of several plots, and according to official documents is
exploiting over 250 hectares of land. The low price for
which this land was bought seems to indicate that at
least some of the land was sold under pressure. Part of
the land bought by these individuals was subsequently
sold at a large profit. It is of concern that lawyers
representing these opponents are alleging that there
was no forced displacement, in an attempt to argue
that they hold the land in good faith.
The restitution of land titles alone will not solve the
problems of the peasant farmers of El Carpintero: If
we manage to return there, then the state or INCODER should
give us a project to help us move forward, because if they
take us there again and we are left there with nothing,
without a machete, with nothing to work with, then what is the
point? Because all they do is make us suffer, we will end up
going hungry. And so they should give us a project, and we
will set to work I would like to grow cassava, bananas,
pumpkin and watermelons for our own benefit And
livestock, have some cows there, or some calves I would
like that.

[the] violence has left indelible scars
LOS PLAYONES DE PIVIJAY
In 1996, 75 women were given a land title by the

state for 1,322 hectares of land on the Playones
(riverside) de Pivijay in Pivijay Municipality, Magdalena
Department. The women had formed a collective
called the Womens Association of Rural Producers
(Asociacion de Mujeres Productoras del Campo,
ASOMUPROCA) when they were forced to leave their
original homes in Pueblo Viejo and Cinaga in
Magdalena after the fish on which they relied on to
make a living began to die: At the end of 94-95, there
was a catastrophe affecting the lagoon in the municipality of
Pueblo Viejo and the neighbouring municipalities causing the
fish to die. We the fishing village we set up a womens
committee to get the national government to pay attention
to us there were 75 of us.
They received the land as part of a pilot project by the
Ministry of Agriculture to boost the income of female
heads of households under Law 160 of 1994. The state
paid 70% of the cost of the land and gave the women a
loan for the remaining 30%.
The women also received a loan to buy cattle and
seeds, but it was not fully paid to them: They gave us an
agricultural project consisting of cattle, plus bananas and
corn. But when the former Caja Agraria [Agrarian Bank]
realized that the land was not productive, they automatically
suspended the disbursement of seeds, and all they gave us
were a few head of cattle of very poor quality who ended up
dying all alone and produced no milk, and so we had to come
to our communities to work in order to take food back to the
people who were still there.
Not only was the land and livestock not productive, it

also lacked water, electricity and road access. One
woman recalled how difficult it was to access the plots
of land: When they told us we had the land, we set off to go
there but we didnt know how far we would have to walk.
From where the car dropped us off we had to walk for about
eight hours to reach the land. The land was not suitable
for living on, so the women had to live in nearby villages.
An additional difficulty was that the land was not in a single
area, but scattered: They bought some here and later some over
there and then more over there, and in the middle there were other
peoples farms next to the land, and as there were no access roads,
we had to pass through our neighbours farms. And there was one
man who would not let us through. Sometimes we hid and
crawled under the barbed wire fences in order to get there. When
we arrived, we found mud puddles that came up to our waists.
The women of ASOMUPROCA started a campaign to
obtain land elsewhere. One of the leaders, Mrs Luisa
Borrero Celedon realized that we were being badly
cheated, including by the state, and we began to take legal
proceedings we saw how they were cheating us, violating
our rights; instead of improving our quality of life, what they
were doing was making it worse.
The assigned plot was also in an area under the
territorial control of guerrilla forces, who controlled the
womens movements and forced them to work for them.
When we arrived, we didnt know that there were illegal
[armed] groups around. In this case, the ELN and FARC. So when
we got there, they applied their law. They made us do difficult
jobs, mens work, such as building bridges, to channel water
pipes, and we were constantly threatened that if we went into
town, we could not say that they were there. They never let us
get to know all the land. They were always prohibiting us
telling us where we could walk and how far we could go.

Now the debt is 6 thousand million

pesos [about USD 3 million]
We cant pay it.
From 1999 there was also paramilitary presence in the

area: There were paramilitaries there by then, we were no
longer able to take food there because they took away the
food we were carrying they said we were taking food to
the guerrillas In other words, the guerrillas were inside, the
paramilitaries were outside and we were in the middle.
Living in the midst of an armed conflict had fatal
consequences: In the year 99, on 12 January they killed
Luisa on the land. We were already afraid because of the
targeted killings going on around the land.
The killing of Luisa Borrero Celedon sent shockwaves
within the community, leading some of the women to
flee the area. But they returned to the Playones de
Pivijay soon after because INCORA had warned them
that they would lose their land if they did not return:
Once they killed Luisa some of our families returned
again to the areas they had left, and some of us persisted in
wanting to farm the land.
The presence of armed actors resulted in killings,
enforced disappearances, forced recruitments, threats
and the burning of some houses. One woman remembers
how she and her sister fled to avoid forced recruitment:
After the death of Luisa they started distributing leaflets and
all that The guerrillas wanted to take my sister. They were
going to take her away At that time my sister was 14 years
old. And they were going to take her. Some of our neighbours
told my father that we should get out because they were going
to take my sister. My father took us away early in the morning.
Over 50 families fled the area in late 1999 following a
paramilitary incursion into Pivijay Municipality in
October of that year, in which at least three people
were killed, including a woman whose breasts were
mutilated. The day we left, which was 14 October [1999],
they murdered some nearby families and we couldnt stay

there anymore we all had to leave, with just the clothes we
had on, because they were already very close. Thanks be to
God, there was a very heavy downpour and it stopped them
coming in, because there was no access route. We went out
another way where the water came above our waists in order
to get out of there. They burned down our farms, they stole all
our cattle and the animals we had for food everything we
had there. They took it all, they left the land completely
without animals, without anything.
Following the forced displacement, the women of
ASOMUPROCA scattered: Some went to Barranquilla,
others went to Venezuela we all left. In spite of this, they
still faced killings and threats. In August 2000, the legal
representative of ASOMUPROCA was killed in Cinaga
Municipality, Magdalena Department: Her name was
Dora Camacho there were rumours that they were going to
put an end to the whole Association and we didnt know
whether the land was already occupied or not. A few days
later, Graciela Ibez, also a member of ASOMUPROCA,
and her husband Antonio de la Cruz, both elderly, were
killed in the municipality of El Retn, Magdalena.
The authorities were informed of the forced displacement:
In 2001, we started to declare ourselves to be displaced
people. We had not done so immediately because we didnt
know how to go about it and because we were afraid. Some of
us did it in 2000, others in 2001. This important step
should have led to their right to the land being protected.
However this was not the case, as one of the women of
ASOMUPROCA recalls: In 2005, INCODER issued a
resolution saying that they were stripping us of the land on
grounds of desertion. [The mayor] took us to INCODER and
there was indeed an edict saying that we had five or seven days
left before they would take away our land because they said
Asociacin Colectivo Mujeres al Derecho

that we had abandoned it. We submitted evidence, showing

that we had not abandoned it but that there had been a
massive displacement and that people had been murdered.
In October 2005 the women received individual
notifications from INCODER informing them that as they
had abandoned their plot, their land would be taken away.
When some of the women tried to register their forced
displacement with the authorities, they were turned
away. It took a decade and the legal support of a
human rights organization, Asociacin Colectivo
Mujeres al Derecho (ASOCOLEMAD, referred to as the
Colectivo in the testimonies), for their displacement to
be registered. The women of ASOMUPROCA recall
how crucial the support of ASOCOLEMAD is: We gave
[the Colectivo] all the documentation, everything we had
done. They started the legal proceedings By about 20062007 the plots of land had been auctioned off With the
Colectivo we managed to halt [a further] sale we have
proceedings going on in the court here in Santa Marta
The first time I went with my mother to get a resolution [to

recognize the forced displacement], they said no. They did
not want to attend to us. It was only later that they did so,
after we had got to know the Colectivo.
With the support of ASOCOLEMAD, the women of
ASOMUPROCA brought their case to the Constitutional
Court, which ruled that their rights as displaced people
must be recognized. As a result, INCODER revoked its
2005 resolution, and in 2011 issued resolutions for
most of the women affirming their right to the land.
However, the resolutions for some of the women have
not yet been issued.
Meanwhile, the women are still concerned about the
debt they incurred from the state to buy the land and
A map of the Playones de Pivijay drawn by women from

ASOMUPROCA as part of a social cartography exercise
which had increased over the years: Now the debt is 6

thousand million pesos [about USD 3 million] We cant pay it.
They have also faced threats since their debt was sold on
to third parties: [The man who] bought the debt he turned
up at my house. He found me He came with some other men,
trying to force me to get the women to sign for him because
he had bought the debt, and to get us to come to an agreement
because he was the owner of the land One time, without
being invited, he came to my house at 9:30 at night, in a car,
with some armed men, forcing me and telling me that if I did
not convince the women to sign, something would happen to me.
Some of the women from ASOMUPROCA sold their
land when they were forcibly displaced: There were also
women who, because they were threatened, sold their land
for an insignificant amount. Women who sold their unit of land
for 200,000 pesos [about USD 100]. Women who for each
household unit had to sell for 400,000 pesos [about USD 200].
And because they were threatened, they had to leave: here,
take this and dont come back again.
In the course of the forced displacement ASOMUPROCA
became divided, as 10 women chose to stay on the
land: the women who are on the land are 10 women from
the organization who have always been there who are in

In other words, the guerrillas were
inside, the paramilitaries were outside

and we were in the middle.
disagreement with us because they did not leave. They

stayed there. They totally changed the rules and they let
men in, when the organization is entirely women The 10
women [who] are there are the ones who never wanted to
leave the land, despite all the violence.
In April 2013, 62 women of ASOMUPROCA were due
to present their claim for land restitution in an event
organized by the URT. However the event was cut short
when the bodyguard of the Regional Director of the
URT started taking pictures of the land claimants: we
were gathered there with all the women When a man
turned up at the door taking photographs Many of the
women were very upset because of [the] violence it has
left indelible scars sometimes [you can be] very
frightened to say things When we asked why he was
taking photographs, who was that person, it turned out he was
the bodyguard of the Regional Director of the URT In the
end we put a halt to everything, it made us very scared.
servants from the state entities in charge of processing

their land restitution claim: When the group of surveyors
and officers (notificadores) arrived, it looked as though they
all knew each other from before.
The women of ASOMUPROCA are also aware of
economic interests on their land: there is a man who is
the one buying the wood a landowner from here in Magdalena,
the owner of a palm oil company, which is supposedly
planting palms on the upper part of the land. There also
seem to be extractive interests on their land: over the
past year we have found out that [extractives company]
PRODECO arrived marking out some points in order to
carry out excavations actually on San Marco one of the
plots at Los Playones. In one of the municipalities, called
Pin, they have done some mining and found minerals.
The women finally filed formally for land restitution in

June 2013. In order to ensure their personal safety they
came in small groups from different locations: Not even
the URT knew which days we were going to be there. But
even with these precautions they were still threatened:
The daughter of Luisa who was murdered she received
a call telling her that if she demanded the land back, what
had happened to her mother would happen to her too.
On 26 and 27 June 2014, eight years after they started

their campaign to return to their land and one year
after they started the process under Law 1448, 66
women were notified of their inclusion in the RTDAF,
which means their claim can now be adjudicated by a
restitution judge. However, there have been delays in
presenting the judicial action for restitution. A further
five women are also awaiting inclusion in the register at
the time of writing. By law, the decision on whether to
include a claim in the RTDAF should have taken a
maximum of 90 days.
As the process of land restitution continues, the

women of ASOMUPROCA are still concerned about
their security, given the connections of the people who
are currently occupying their land: most of the men who
are living on the land are brothers of the former mayor of the
municipality of Retn. He is currently being investigated for
having links with the paramilitaries. There are also
concerns that the men may have links with the civil
Since the inclusion in the RTDAF there has been an

increase in the threats against them, including
intimidating phone calls, surveillance of their phones
and death threats.9 As the ASOCOLEMAD told Amnesty
International in October 2014: [T]he unjustified delay in
the administrative process represents an element of legal
uncertainty for the women. In breach of the law, the [URT] did
not process all together the many restitution requests

ENDNOTES
concerning the land submitted by the people who are invading

it. This means that it is not known whether or not those
people will be recognized as having rights over Los Playones de
Pivijay and so be able to participate in the legal proceedings as
victims or opponents, and whether or not, as a consequence,
the principle of reversal of the burden of proof would work
in the womens favour Meanwhile, the womens land is still
being occupied and economically exploited and subject to
irregular transactions, thus demonstrating that to date,
15 months after they filed the claim for restitution of their
land, ASOMUPROCA has not received any support from the
authorities to protect their right to the land.
There are concerns that these delays could make it
more difficult for the women to return to the land in a
sustainable manner. Following the death of Vicenta
Segobia Gomez, a member of ASOMUPROCA, on 21
September 2014, due to ill health, ASOMUPROCA and
19 other organizations issued a statement, highlighting
their situation [] [W]ith the procedure before the URT
being unjustifiably at a standstill at the present time []
and while changes in the use of the womens land and the
destruction of its fauna, flora and natural resources are
continuing, as well as transactions relating to ownership of
the land by those who are currently occupying and using it,
[] the failure to deliver and the despair, discouragement
and despondency caused by the lack of efficiency and
timeliness in the programmes run by the Victims Unit, the
Land Restitution Unit and the National Protection Unit are
obvious and we demand respect and dignity for the women of
ASOMUPROCA and all the countrys victims.
1 Amnesty International, Urgent Action FU UA 103/13,

Colombia: Further Information: Human rights defenders
receive death threat, (Index: AMR 23/051/2013), available
at www.amnesty.org/es/library/info/AMR23/051/2013/en
2 Amnesty International, Urgent Action UA 103/13,
Colombia: Peasant farmer killed after threats, (Index: AMR
23/017/2013), available at
www.amnesty.org/es/library/info/AMR23/017/2013/en
3 Given the informality of land ownership in Colombia and
the consequent lack of land titles, often only the mejoras,
that is the improvements made to a plot of land to increase
its value, and not the land itself, can be bought and sold.
Colombia: Further Information: Peasant farmers threatened,
forcibly evicted, (Index: AMR 23/013/2014), available at
Colombia: Further Information: Defenders supporting peasant
farmers threatened, (Index: AMR 23/021/2014), available at
6 Members of JACs are elected to their positions by local
community members. They act as spokespeople and
leaders for the community, manage limited state funds for
local projects and are often the first point of contact for
victims of human rights abuses. Their leadership role makes
them vulnerable to accusations of collaboration with one or
the other side in the conflict.
Colombia: Fear for Safety/Extrajudicial Execution, (Index:
AMR 23/067/1999), available at
Colombia: Peasant farmer shot at, community at risk:
(Index: AMR 23/022/2014), available at
Colombia: Death threats to women land claimants, (Index:
AMR 23/028/2014), available at
ARE NOT WEALTHY PEOPLE.

WE
THEY COME ONLY BECAUSE THEY HAVE
POWER IN THE WORLD. TO DESTROY AND

KILL EVERYTHING WE HAVE
Front cover photo: Peasant farmers from El Porvenir drive

their motorbikes on the vast savannah.
Back cover photo: Peasant farmers from El Tamarindo
walking between the lush green land (on the left) that they
are cultivating, and the land (on the right) that was cleared
following a forced eviction. Amnesty International

29
5. THE OBSTACLES TO SUSTAINABLE

LAND RESTITUTION FOR ALL VICTIMS
One has hope of recovering what one has lost
but on the other hand you wonder how you will get
it back? It all seems so perfect, but where are the
guarantees? That is what we want: guarantees.
Woman land claimant from Magdalena Department, November 2013
The land restitution process has advanced very slowly. An official report evaluating
implementation of Law 1448 by the Offices of the Comptroller General, the Procurator
General and the Human Rights Ombudsman, published in August 2013, concluded that
there had been very modest progress and reparation is still very far from being a reality for
the majority of victims of the armed conflict.100 Unless the significant weaknesses in the
implementation of Law 1448, highlighted below, are not effectively addressed, the
government will fail to guarantee the right to reparation of most of the victims of the conflict
claiming land restitution within the 10-year life span of the process.
At the end of June 2014 only 213 mostly rural areas in 117 of the countrys 1,102
municipalities, some as small as individual farmsteads and hamlets, had been microfocalized around the country, and were thus eligible for restitution. Almost 6 million people
have been displaced by the conflict so far. Yet by 30 June 2014, there had only been
64,815 requests for land restitution covering 52,701 farmsteads (predios) and 43,922
individuals. Of these requests, only 22,469 were in micro-focalized areas and so were
eligible for processing.101 Of this total, only 6,820 requests had been included in the RTDAF
by the end of June 2014, and thus transferred to the judicial phase. 102 By 30 June 2014,
the URT had also refused to include 3,548 restitution cases in the RTDAF after it concluded
that the cases did not fulfil the criteria for inclusion, despite the URT agreeing to proceed
with these cases in the first place.103 According to official figures, women account for some
38% of all land claimants.104
By 1 August 2014, restitution judges and magistrates had issued 650 judicial rulings,
covering 1,211 farmsteads benefiting 2,687 individuals. The total amount of land that has
thus far been the subject of land restitution for peasant farmers is just 29,695 hectares.105
This is a fraction of the 8 million hectares that are thought to have been illegally acquired in
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the course of the conflict,106 and more than a quarter of the total amount of land that has
been subject to restitution 8,400 hectares was restored to a single family in Puerto
Gaitn, Meta Department, in March 2013.107 It is of concern that the restitution process is
advancing so slowly despite the fact that almost 80% of cases do not have an opponent and
so should, in theory at least, be relatively straightforward to resolve.108
Some 96% of all cases heard so far have been decided by the restitution judges and
magistrates in favour of the land claimant. 109 Most of the land restitution cases that have
thus far been settled involve families who had already returned to their land prior to the
restitution process and are simply seeking formalization of their ownership over the land,
rather than restitution per se. Therefore, one key indicator for assessing the degree of success
of the land restitution process is the number of families who have actually been able to
return to their lands following the judicial sentence. Of course, some individuals and families
have chosen not to return for a variety of reasons; for example they may now be too old to
return to work their land. But many others are desperate to return home, in some cases
decades after they were displaced from their lands.
The URT does not appear to have figures for the number of families who were still displaced
at the time of the judicial sentence, and subsequently managed to return to their lands.
Instead, the URT utilizes the concept of the effective enjoyment of the property (goce
efectivo del predio), which records only those who have returned either to live on the land, or
to work on it, or have rented it to a third party. Using this methodology, the URT has
calculated that by 1 August 2014, 303 families who were not on the land at the time the
judicial sentence was issued in their favour now have effective enjoyment of the
property.110 But this does not necessarily mean that they have returned.
As of July 2014, UARIV had information on the whereabouts of 791 families whose land
claim had been resolved. Of these, fewer than half, 329, were now living or working on the
land they had claimed. However, UARIV could only confirm that as few as 33 families had
returned to their farmstead following the issuing of the restitution sentence. 111 The main
reasons why land claimants have not been able to return include fear about security in the
area where their lands are located; delays by INCODER to issue the claimants with their land
titles; and the failure of the URT to implement the agricultural project that land claimants
need in order to sustain themselves economically on their land. 112
One restitution judge told Amnesty International that in five of the six rulings he had issued
by the end of 2013, the claimants had not returned. The sixth claimant was already on the
property when he made the claim and the families in the other five cases did not want to or
could not return, some because of security fears and others because the authorities had yet
to provide them with the financial assistance they needed to return. 113
As such, the law has so far operated more as a mechanism for land formalization that is for
the legalization of land ownership rather than as a tool for land restitution per se that
benefits those forcibly displaced from their lands and who have been unable to return. Some
of the cases that have been resolved were also already relatively advanced under other land
restitution or reform mechanisms, such as Law 160 of 1994. In effect, Law 1448 simply
rubber-stamped many restitution processes that were almost nearing completion but were,
nevertheless, presented as successes of Law 1448.
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Very few cases have challenged land occupation by large national or international companies,
paramilitaries or others who may have been responsible for the forced displacement and
dispossession of the claimant.114 The opponents thus far have tended to be peasant farmers
and/or victims of displacement from elsewhere. The real test for Law 1448 will come when
the URT and the restitution judges and magistrates begin to challenge powerful agroindustrial and mining interests, which have the resources to robustly challenge efforts to
force them to relinquish land, as well as paramilitary groups.
Law 1448 will clearly benefit many land claimants; however, because of the legislations
inherent weaknesses and failures in its implementation, which are outlined below, others
might not be able to benefit from the laws provisions by the time it expires in 2021. Some
may not even be eligible to benefit from it unless important aspects of the legislation, such
as those that restrict qualification, are amended. Many of those who are successful in having
their land returned to them might not be able to return and, if they do, may be unable to
remain on their land for long due to security concerns or lack of resources. There is also a
risk that, owing to some of Law 1448s provisions and the states failure to combat impunity,
including for forced displacement, many illegally seized lands may never be identified, let
alone returned to their rightful owners.
Of particular concern is the fact that, almost three years after the start of the implementation
of Law 1448, the vast majority some 85% of potential claimants have not presented their
case to the URT. This is for various reasons, including security concerns; a lack of confidence
in the state authorities, especially since state actors are responsible for the majority of
human rights violations and most have never been brought to justice; a lack of knowledge
about their rights; the discrepancy between the level of legal support provided to victims and
that enjoyed by powerful opponents who might challenge victims land claims; and the
arduous administrative processes established by the URT.115
EXCLUDING CERTAIN CATEGORIES OF VICTIMS

Law 1448 is a transitional justice mechanism, which implies that Colombia is in a postconflict situation. However, despite ongoing peace negotiations, it is difficult to assert that
the armed conflict and its human rights consequences have been overcome. Since Law 1448
only covers victims of conflict-related crimes, and excludes victims of common crimes,116
victims of paramilitary groups (which the government refers to as criminal gangs, or Bacrim)
could in theory be excluded. The authorities do not acknowledge paramilitaries as parties to
the conflict, and so their victims fall outside the scope of the law.
In 2012 the Constitutional Court affirmed that abuses by Bacrim could be considered to be
conflict-related.117 This implied that such victims could benefit from Law 1448. However,
this interpretation has not been consistently applied by those responsible for the laws
implementation. The URT has not issued formal guidelines to local URT offices on the need
to comply with the Courts ruling. Consequently, it has been left to local URT officials to
decide whether or not to accept land restitution claims by victims of paramilitaries.118
Partly in order to limit the costs of reparation, including of land restitution, Law 1448 has
created a hierarchy of victims of the conflict in which eligibility for reparation depends on the
date on which human rights abuses and violations were carried out, thus effectively denying
many victims the right to an effective remedy: 119
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Victims of human rights abuses and violations occurring before 1985 may only
receive symbolic reparation, not land restitution or financial compensation.
Victims of human rights abuses committed between 1985 and 1991 will be eligible
for financial compensation, but not land restitution.
Only those victims whose lands were misappropriated after 1991 and before the end
of the laws applicability in 2021 will be eligible for land restitution.
Some of the land restitution cases that predate 1991 are being processed by alternative
restitution mechanisms, such as Law 160 of 1994, which is an administrative rather than
judicial process administered by INCODER. However, decisions on land restitution made
under Law 160 can be challenged in the courts through the Council of State (Consejo de
Estado). Such appeals can take up to 10 years, resulting in a lack of timely restitution of
land claims for many victims.
Law 1448 originally contained provisions that could have excluded land claimants who had
taken part in peaceful protest if they were considered to have invaded, occupied or used the
land they were claiming (conduct known as vas de hecho) before a restitution judge or
magistrate had issued a ruling on the property in question.120 This raised several concerns,
not least that the right to full reparation is a human right and cannot be denied, even if a
claimant commits a crime. In addition, the law could in effect have criminalized actions
undertaken by land claimants that would not normally be considered illegal.
In 2012 the Constitutional Court declared unconstitutional the wording in Law 1448 that
denied land restitution to victims deemed to have taken such illegal action to campaign for
the return of illegally acquired lands. The Court argued that such action amounted to a denial
of victims right to reparation.121 It is surprising, therefore, that according to a recent URT
evaluation report on implementation of Law 1448, published in January 2014, claimants
who participated in vas de hecho can still be excluded.122
As stated earlier, requests for restitution from claimants whose lands have not yet been
earmarked for restitution (that is, they are not in areas that have been macro- and microfocalized), which is the case with most claimants, are not processed by the URT. A
monitoring report published by the Offices of the Comptroller General, the Human Rights
Ombudsman and the Procurator General in August 2014 stated that the failure to register
and investigate cases from areas not yet micro-focalized could imply a restriction of access to
justice for many victims.123
LACK OF SECURITY GUARANTEES AND THE NEED FOR COMPREHENSIVE

PROTECTION
Given the ongoing armed conflict in Colombia, one of the most serious challenges facing the
land restitution process is to ensure that those returning to their lands can do so in safety
and be able to remain on their property without fear of being displaced again because of
threats, killings and other human rights abuses and violations. Many land claimants have
been threatened or killed. Those leading land restitution efforts and representing displaced
communities, human rights defenders accompanying them, and state officials have also been
the target of attacks because of their work.
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All parties to the conflict have been responsible for committing human rights abuses against
the civilian population. However, the principal security risk, including for land claimants, has
come from the various paramilitary groups that continue to operate despite their supposed
demobilization. A recent official report on the implementation of Law 1448, published in
August 2014, states that: the post demobilization groups such as the Black Eagles, the
Gaitanista Self-Defence Forces of Colombia, the Rastrojos, and the Meta and the Liberators
of Vichada Blocs have been identified in 73% of all risk warnings. 124
THE RIGHT TO DEFEND HUMAN RIGHTS

The right to defend human rights is recognized and protected in international human rights law. The UN
Declaration on Human Rights Defenders, adopted in 1998, acknowledges this right and develops provisions
enshrined in legally binding instruments such as the ICCPR. The Declaration sets out the minimum standards
that states must adopt to enable those who wish to defend human rights to carry out their work, including to
protect, promote and implement human rights; take all the necessary measures to protect human rights
defenders against any violence, threats, retaliation, discrimination, pressure or any other arbitrary action in
response to their legitimate exercise of the right to defend human rights; create all the conditions necessary in
the social, economic, political, legal and any other fields to ensure that every person can carry out work and
actions in defence of human rights; and provide an effective remedy when human rights defenders have been
victims of human rights abuses.125
According to the Declaration, states have an obligation not to interfere, obstruct or violate the right to defend
human rights and to protect that right from interference, obstruction and abuse by others, including non-state
actors. This must involve timely and effective protection measures for human rights defenders at risk of attack
and the bringing to justice of anyone suspected of criminal responsibility for attacks against human rights
defenders.126
On 12 April 2013, the UN Human Rights Council adopted a resolution on protecting human rights defenders. 127
The resolution calls on states to ensure that procedural safeguards are in place to guarantee that the justice
system is not misused to target human rights defenders. On 18 December 2013, the UN General Assembly
adopted a resolution on the protection of women human rights defenders.128 The resolution expresses concern
about systemic and structural discrimination and violence faced by women HRDs [human rights defenders]
and calls on states to elaborate and implement, together with women human rights defenders, genderspecific policies to ensure their protection.
In her report published on 23 December 2013, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights
defenders also outlined a series of measures, including political and legal mechanisms, that states must
adopt to ensure that human rights defenders are afforded comprehensive protection and a safe and enabling
environment so that they can, in practice, carry out their human rights work without fear of reprisals. 129
The Pinheiro Principles and Deng Principles make reference to the right of displaced persons
to return to their homes in safety and dignity. As such, the Deng Principles state that the
[c]ompetent authorities have the primary duty and responsibility to establish conditions, as
well as provide the means, which allow internally displaced persons to return voluntarily, in
safety and with dignity, to their homes or places of habitual residence, or to resettle
voluntarily in another part of the country.130 Similarly, the Pinheiro Principles state that
[a]ll refugees and displaced persons have the right to return voluntarily to their former
homes, lands or places of habitual residence, in safety and dignity. 131
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However, the security situation faced by those claiming restitution of land and those
accompanying them, including human rights defenders, community leaders, URT officials
and members of the judiciary, has deteriorated in recent years, as opponents of the land
restitution process step up efforts to derail it. According to the NGO Somos Defensores, at
least five land activists were killed in 2013,132 and at least two were killed in the first half of
2014.133 According to data from the Office of the Attorney General, by the end of August
2014, at least 35 individuals, including six that had made land restitution claims to the
URT, had been killed because of their suspected association with the land restitution
process.134
On 8 July 2014, Robinson lvarez Quemba, a topographer working with the URT, was shot by
an unknown assailant while working on a land restitution case in the municipality of San
Roque, Antioquia Department. He died of his injuries three days later.
URT officials are generally provided with security, including by the security forces, when
working in the field. However, representatives from the geographical institute IGAC, who
often travel to the field in support of the land restitution process, told Amnesty International
that IGAC has not implemented any security protocols for its staff, and that IGAC officials,
such as topographers, have no security accompaniment when travelling on official
business.135
The restitution judges also have only limited measures for their protection. Many are
accompanied by the police when they are in the town or city where their offices are located,
but, critically, not when they need to travel to rural areas. Most judges have use of an
armoured vehicle but this often has to be shared between the two judges responsible for land
restitution in a particular area.136 In March 2013, 54 restitution judges and magistrates
wrote to President Santos asking him for effective security measures for them and their
families because [we are] equally or more exposed given that we are precisely those who
order the juridical and material restitution of dispossessed properties.137
Amnesty International received information of threats against at least two restitution judges.
In March 2014, a judge from Buga, Valle del Cauca Department, received a written death
threat from an unknown source, and again in July 2014, this time reportedly from the FARC,
who declared the judge a military target. In June 2014, a female restitution judge from
Yopal, Casanare Department, also received a written death threat from an unknown source.
Both judges were transferred to other parts of the country for their safety.
Attacks against land restitution activists can have a significant impact on the communities
they represent. Many of these individuals began their activism decades ago, as peasant
farmer leaders, and continued their struggle after their communities were displaced. As such,
many current leaders of restitution processes have a long history of activism. Therefore,
threats against and killings of such leaders tend to have disastrous impacts not only on
restitution processes but on a communitys general ability to organize. States have an
obligation as set out, for example, in the UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders to
address situations that are dangerous to or incompatible with the defence of human rights. 138
One major source of concern, voiced by some human rights organizations who spoke to
Amnesty International, is the possible impact on their security and that of land claimants and
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other victims, of the planned release from prison of more than 160 paramilitaries during
2014, with more due to be released in subsequent years. Some of those released are highranking leaders, who had been in prison on remand, but who had served the maximum eight
years stipulated in the Justice and Peace Law (Law 975 of 2005). Many of these
paramilitaries are expected to return to their original areas of operation, where many of their
victims still live.139 The states National Protection Unit (Unidad Nacional de Proteccin,
UNP) told Amnesty International that it had not evaluated the impact of the releases nor put
in place any additional measures to mitigate any risk.140
The security problem has been exacerbated by the fact that in many land claims those
responsible for the forced displacement, or their straw men, are often still present on the
property. In some cases, those occupying the properties have used threats and even killings
to intimidate victims into not making land claims or to derail ongoing restitution processes.
In some cases, they have challenged the restitution claims of victims, or have even been
included in the process by the URT as so-called victim opponents, and as such have the
right to compensation and legal representation if they can provide evidence of good faith
without culpability. The inclusion of such individuals as victim opponents by the URT, thus
placing them on a par with the land claimant, has generated divisions and tensions within
the affected communities.141
A related development that has increased risk for land claimants has involved legal occupants
entering into business partnerships, often centred on agro-industrial projects, with the
occupants who have acquired the land illegally. One example documented by Amnesty
International involves the Afro-descendant collective land titles of the Jiguamiand River
Basin and the Curvarad River Basin, Choc Department.142 Here, powerful economic
interests, operating with paramilitaries, have illegally acquired parts of the collective land
titles and sought to involve members of the local population together with forcibly displaced
people from other areas in agro-industrial projects.143 This has sought to both legitimize the
project and to undermine the communitys organizational structures.
Women who play a leadership role within forcibly displaced communities or in land
restitution processes also continue to be at serious risk of attack. Many women leaders have
faced a litany of human rights abuses and violations, including killings, death threats, sexual
violence and forced displacement. In Judicial Decision 098 (Auto 098) of 2013, the
Constitutional Court asserted that the Colombian state lacks a comprehensive policy of
promoting the right to defend human rights that has principally affected the fundamental
rights of displaced women leaders and womens organizations who work in favour of the
displaced population. The Constitutional Court called on the authorities to develop and
implement a comprehensive public policy on the promotion of human rights in the context of
the armed conflict with a gender perspective. The Colombian government and Colombian
womens organizations were, at the time of writing, engaged in discussions about how best to
implement such a policy.144
Paramilitaries, often working with others with a political and/or economic interest in the lands
being claimed, as well as drug trafficking gangs, have been primarily responsible for threats
against and killings of land claimants and land activists. Since the start of the land
restitution process, some threats and killings have been attributed to so-called antirestitution armies. Such groups, according to some NGO sources, were set up in 2011-
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2012 as private armies by cattle-ranchers and other large-scale land-owning interests (many
of whom have a long history of backing paramilitary structures) to protect their interests by
seeking to undermine the restitution process. 145
Law 1448 acknowledges that victims, witnesses and public officials involved in the land
restitution process face security risks and that effective measures must be put in place to
protect them.146 The security mechanisms set up for those involved in the land restitution
process are based on Decree 4912 of 2011, which set up the UNP in the Interior Ministry.
Under Decree 4912, the various protection mechanisms for individuals, communities and
groups at risk that had previously existed were brought together under the UNP.
The UNP began working with the URT in June 2012, and a special programme for land
claimants, as stipulated in Law 1448, was set up soon after. The UNP also has other
protection mechanisms for land cases that fall outside Law 1448, such as those being
processed under Law 160 of 1994. The protection protocols for land claimants stipulate that
the URT is obliged to pass to the UNP for a risk evaluation any report of risk or threat
presented to it by a land claimant.
Specific security measures for individuals at risk are identified and implemented by
Committees on Risk Evaluation and Recommendation of Measures (Comits de Evaluacin de
Riesgos y Recomendacin de Medidas, CERREM). CERREM exist for different types of
individuals and groups at risk, including land claimants. Separate CERREM also exist for
women and for human rights defenders. The CERREM established for land claimants consists
of representatives from the Interior Ministry, UARIV, the UNP, representatives from human
rights NGOs, the presidential human rights programme and the police. Yet, crucially, there
are no representatives from the URT.
Under Colombian law, women victims of human rights abuses and violations, including those
involved in the land restitution process, also have the right to specific and individualized
protection measures, such as women bodyguards or security assessments carried out by
female assessors from the UNP. This right and its differential approach is reflected in, for
example, Law 1257 of 2008, Constitutional Court Sentence T-496 of 2008, Interior Ministry
Decree 4912 of 2011, and UNP Resolution 0805 of 2012.
In June 2014, President Santos signed off a new law to specifically address conflict-related
sexual violence, an issue that particularly affects displaced women. The new law defines
such violence as a war crime and a crime against humanity. The law addresses a number of
specific practices, which continue to be carried out in the context of the armed conflict,
including sexual slavery and sexual exploitation, as well as enforced practices of sterilization,
prostitution, abortion, pregnancy and nudity. The law provides for the non-applicability of
statutes of limitations with regard to genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, and
sets out criteria for investigating sexual crimes, and on protecting survivors and guaranteeing
their anonymity and their right not to be discriminated against by the authorities, including
on the grounds of their real or perceived sexual activity or orientation. 147
Although the UNP protection programme has saved lives, and many land claimants and land
activists benefit from its provisions, serious weaknesses remain. The protection mechanisms
offered to land claimants and human rights defenders by the UNP are reactive and
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individual, that is, they are generally activated once a threat has arisen, rather than
preventative and collective, that is, designed to protect a whole community at risk. As such,
they do not take into account the factors and causes that generate risk. They are designed
simply to mitigate a physical risk. This results in the provision of limited, individual physical
protection measures, such as armoured cars and bodyguards, for only a relatively few
individuals deemed to be at particularly high risk of attack.
These measures have often been deemed as inappropriate by human rights NGOs and the
victims themselves. For instance, peasant farmers are sometimes provided with armoured
vehicles and bodyguards in areas where only paramilitaries, public officials, members of the
security forces and drug traffickers use such vehicles. This could expose the victim to
additional risk and lead to stigmatization by other members of the community in the area
where the victim lives. Consequently, some communities have sought to develop alternative
collective and preventative protection mechanisms, such as international accompaniment
and security training for community leaders and members.
Human rights NGOs and many communities at risk repeatedly told Amnesty International that
the most effective form of protection is political support and recognition for their work from
the state authorities. They also highlighted the need for effective investigations by the Office
of the Attorney General to identify and bring to trial those suspected of having criminal
responsibility for human rights abuses and violations. 148
Those classified as ordinary (low) risk are not eligible for protection measures, while those
deemed to be at extraordinary or extreme risk can receive a range of measures depending on
the level of risk. These range from mobile phones and so-called godfather plans (planes
padrinos), which consist of police visits to victims homes, to the provision of armoured
vehicles and armed bodyguards. However, some victims told Amnesty International that on
occasions the phones provided by UNP do not work because of a lack of coverage, because
the victim cannot afford to use them or because they have broken. Some victims also
reported to Amnesty International that the godfather plans are sometimes not implemented
because the police do not have the money for petrol, so any contact with police is often only
by phone. Budget limitations mean that recipients of physical protection measures often
report reductions in their security provision. For example, some victims who have been
provided with vehicles by the UNP told Amnesty International that they lack the financial
resources to purchase fuel for the vehicles.149
The UNP stated that between January 2012 and March 2014 it received 1,124 requests for
protection by land claimants and land activists (344 from women and 780 from men), but of
these, fewer than half (144 women and 338 men, a total of 482) were deemed to be at risk
and were therefore eligible for protection measures.150 According to the Human Rights
Ombudsman, many cases are defined as ordinary risk because the UNP has focused only
on the regional context and ignored local risk factors, such as violence committed by local
armed groups that do not have a presence at the regional level.151 As such the UNP classifies
as ordinary risk many individuals who have been evaluated by the Office of the Human
Rights Ombudsman as living with an extraordinary level of risk.152
In some cases, the implementation of protection measures has been subject to unacceptable
delays. According to the Human Rights Ombudsman, some land claimants have waited up to
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six months for the UNP to make a decision on their case. 153 The UNP acknowledged that it
should resolve cases within 30 days, but claims that cases take longer to resolve because it
does not receive the necessary information in time. 154
The UNP is also supposed to provide emergency measures while it evaluates a case. But
according to information from human rights NGOs provided to Amnesty International, such
emergency measures have not being consistently implemented, and are more likely to be
provided in cases supported by national human rights NGOs. In those cases where emergency
measures are implemented, these are quickly removed if the risk is deemed to be ordinary,
which could expose the claimant to continued risk of violence.
The UNP informed Amnesty International in December 2013 that it was working on a
framework for collective protection measures to be applied to land claimants, among others,
which would seek to adopt a preventative, community approach to protection. 155 According to
the UNP, this new framework will seek to neutralize any possible threats, rather than respond
reactively after the fact. Such plans will also seek to protect a whole community rather than
simply its leaders, as is the case at present, and seek the communitys involvement in the
design of specific measures. For instance, rather than providing an armoured car and
bodyguards for an individual leader, the aim would be to ensure security for the whole
community by, for example, protecting access roads to the area, providing bus services late at
night in urban areas, possibly with police accompaniment, or by ensuring that community
meetings are called by the Office of the Human Rights Ombudsman rather than by an
individual human rights defender, thus reducing any risk to that individual. However, by the
time Amnesty International again spoke to the UNP in July 2014 the framework had still not
been finalized.156 Moreover, the UNP has acknowledged that such measures will prove
difficult to implement while armed actors are still present in many areas, and while there are
no guaranteed funds for what will inevitably be an expensive programme.
Regardless of the protection measures adopted by the authorities, human rights organizations
and lawyers working with land claimants told Amnesty International that many victims have
still not registered their claim with the URT because of continued fears for their security.
This is especially true in cases where those who displaced the claimant in the first place (or
their straw men) are still on their land. Many areas currently earmarked for restitution are
territories from which communities are still being forcibly displaced. This has exacerbated
concerns about security among those hoping to return.
Of those few victims who have been able to return to their lands, some have once again been
forced to flee because of threats.157 Aside from the lack of security guarantees, many human
rights organizations accompanying land claimants told Amnesty International that one of the
reasons for the low rate of return appears to be the failure of the authorities to implement the
complementary measures ordered by judges and magistrates, most of which do not set a time
limit for implementation.158 These measures are designed to make any return viable and
sustainable in the long term. This failure has led to uncertainty among potential returnees
and makes it difficult to evaluate how successfully these measures are being implemented.
FAILURE TO ENSURE SUSTAINABLE LAND RESTITUTION

The granting of a legal land title to those forced off their lands is, of course, a fundamental
aspect of land restitution. But it should mark the beginning and not the end of the land
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restitution process. Effective land restitution also means enabling those who wish to return to
their lands to do so in a sustainable manner.
Many of the areas earmarked for land restitution have been ravaged by the armed conflict.
This has led to a loss of basic infrastructure and services, such as health care, education,
transport, electricity and water. The continuing lack of these services in many cases makes it
difficult for land claimants to return. Some of the lands in question are in poor condition
following years of neglect, or have suffered environmental damage and pollution because of
the presence of industries such as coal mining and palm oil plantations, which have
degraded the soil.159 The danger, therefore, is that the restitution process will fail in practice
to provide victims with lands from which they can make a sustainable livelihood.
Law 1448 placed financial limits on reparation, including land restitution. The law refers to
the principle of fiscal sustainability in making decisions on reparation amounts in order to
ensure affordability. This potentially restricts the resources available to ensure that victims
receive sufficient reparation for the damages they have suffered, especially as the law may
oblige state institutions to provide reparations without sufficient state resources being made
available.160
Constitutional Court ruling T-025 on forced displacement makes an important reference to
the concept of effective enjoyment of rights as a principle in ensuring that claimants can
realize their rights in a meaningful way. However, in line with the priorities outlined above,
Law 1448 reduced the states obligation with regards to reparation to the principle of basic
needs with fiscal responsibility, meaning that in practice, reparation is dependent on what
the state can afford. But as the Constitutional Court stated in a ruling issued in 2013, the
obligations of the state in reparation matters cannot be confused with those relative to
humanitarian aid or to assistance.161
The Office of the Comptroller General told Amnesty International that the states budget for
implementing Law 1448 over its 10-year life span seriously underestimates the real costs of
reparation, including land restitution, and that unless resources are significantly increased
the authorities will be unable to satisfy the rights of victims to full reparation. 162
The law as such does not provide a full compensation package to victims receiving land
restitution. Instead, it allows restitution judges and magistrates to order relief on some
financial debt, property taxes, and on charges for public utilities, such as water and
electricity, which the victim may have incurred after they were forcibly displaced.163 As such,
the URT created a programme for tax and debt relief (Programa de Alivio de Pasivos) to
ensure that land and property would not be handed over with any kind of debt attached that
might make its exploitation difficult. However, this programme does not cover debts incurred
before the displacement and, critically, there is a lack of clarity about whether it includes the
cancelling of mortgage debt. While the URT told Amnesty International that mortgage debt is
covered in most, but not all circumstances, 164 the Office of the Comptroller General said that
only mortgage interest was eligible for relief.165 Many land claimants still owe significant
amounts of money, debt that they incurred from the states Agrarian Bank as part of the land
reform process under Law 160 of 1994. Unless restitution judges order the cancellation of
mortgage debt, claimants are likely to be forced to forego their properties. This situation has
been exacerbated by the fact that according to some lawyers representing land claimants,
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some of these debts have been sold off to private financial firms, and in many cases the
victims do not know who holds their debts.
By the end of June 2014, judges had made 1,017 orders for property tax relief, of which
506 have been implemented. They had also issued 639 orders for the relief of public utilities
debt, of which eight orders had been implemented, and 566 orders for financial debt relief,
none of which appear to have been implemented.166 It must be noted, however, that it many
cases the orders have not been implemented because it has subsequently been discovered
that an order was made to cancel a debt that did not exist.
Provisions in Law 1448 prevent the land from being sold for a two-year period following
restitution, thus offering a certain level of protection for those returning. However, financial
institutions can secure ownership of the land as payment for debts within the first two years.
This means that land restitution could be rendered meaningless if claimants are unable to
repay debts and meet their tax obligations in full.167 Given that many areas of land being
claimed are subject to requests for mining or oil extraction rights, there are concerns that
after the two-year embargo on land sales, peasant farmers could be pressured to sell their
lands to those promoting such economic projects.
Moreover, in recent decades, successive Colombian governments have promoted a rural
development model based on large-scale agro-industrial exports rather than on subsistence
and small-scale farming, through the promotion of mega-projects and subsidies for the largescale exploitation of land. This model could have a significant impact on those land
claimants wishing to return to small-scale and subsistence farming.
While the URT is responsible under Law 1448 for implementing agricultural projects through
the provision of subsidies for land claimants, there is a lack of clarity over whether peasant
farmers will have the liberty to engage in subsistence farming if they so wish. INCODER,
which also has responsibility for funding agricultural projects for forcibly displaced persons,
told Amnesty International that the projects they fund seek to encourage peasant farmers to
participate in agro-industrial projects, if similar projects are already being developed in the
area by the private sector.168 The governments National Centre of Historic Memory told
Amnesty International that the type of agricultural project that is likely to be supported
depends on the existing agricultural structure in a particular area, rather than on what the
claimant really wants or needs.169
According to the URT, 440 families qualified for agricultural projects in 2013, 170 and a
further 82 in the first half of 2014.171 However, the Office of the Procurator General has said
that few agricultural projects have been implemented, resulting in many claimants not being
able to return to their lands.172
Although Law 1448 provides that victims can have their ownership of land recognized, their
right to use the land is limited.173 This means that if the person currently in possession of the
land has developed it, for example for agro-industrial production, then the project will take
precedence over the right of the land claimant to return to the land. If the economic project
is on land occupied in good faith then a land claimant would have to sign a so-called
contract of use (contrato de uso) to either receive rent in lieu of the land, or become a
producer for, or an employee of, the current occupier. If the occupant is deemed to be of bad
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faith, then the project becomes the property of the URT, and the land claimant can either
take over the administration of the project or allow the URT to seek an alternative
administrator who would pay rent to the claimant. In none of these circumstances is the
claimant free, in practice, to choose how the land is used.
In 2012, the Constitutional Court ruled that such contracts would have to be voluntary and
that claimants would have the right to claim the property if they so wished.174 However, the
Office of the Comptroller General has expressed concerns that the ruling did not make clear
how a claimant would, in practice, exercise that right given the asymmetry of power between
the claimant and the occupant, who despite giving up the agro-industrial project might still
control lands in the surrounding area as well as vital resources, such as water and roads. 175
This means, for example, that the claimant might not gain adequate road access to their land
or the water resources necessary to make it productive.
As of the end of June 2014, restitution judges and magistrates had ordered the URT to take
possession of nine economic projects belonging to bad faith occupants, although three of
these were subsequently found not to exist. In none of these cases, however, does it appear
that the claimant has exercised his or her right to return to the land to administer the project
themselves.176
There is a potential conflict of interest between the needs of those peasant farmers wishing
to focus on small-scale and subsistence farming and those of agro-industry. Therefore, the
contract of use could, despite the Constitutional Court ruling, prove to be a significant
problem in effectively limiting what peasant farmers can produce. While INCODER has stated
that it has implemented programmes to assist peasant farmers to develop agricultural
projects collectively, via subsidies, it has acknowledged that these will be limited in scope,
since these projects have had to conform to the governments national development policy,
which, as stated above, seeks to promote large-scale agro-industry.177
In effect, the law could encourage the continuation of some agro-industrial projects that were
either the reason for the forced displacement in the first place, or were initiated in the wake
of land theft resulting from human rights abuses. There is therefore a danger that the law
could help legitimize a process that has often involved the use of human rights abuses and
violations to force through changes in Colombias rural economy. 178
Moreover, there is no provision to compensate victims for any material losses they incurred
during and after their forced displacement, such as the loss of livestock and agricultural
tools. This will make it more difficult for those returning to their lands to resume any farming
activity, despite the limited subsidies, including for machinery, provided by the URT for
agricultural projects.
Under Law 1448, if a plot of land cannot be returned to its rightful occupant for any reason,
then the URT is responsible for providing the claimant with compensation, either financial
compensation or an alternative plot of land. However, by the end of June 2014, the URT had
implemented only 19 of the 68 orders it had received from restitution judges to offer
alternative plots of land or financial compensation to land claimants. 179 This appears to be
due to a lack of funds and suitable alternative plots of land.
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Housing restitution is not included in Law 1448, contrary to the Pinheiro Principles, which
state that all refugees and displaced persons have the right to have restored to them any
housing, land and/or property of which they were arbitrarily or unlawfully deprived, or to be
compensated for any housing, land and/or property that is factually impossible to restore as
determined by an independent, impartial tribunal.180
Instead, the law provides for housing subsidies for land claimants. 181 To this effect, the URT
signed an agreement with the Agrarian Bank to provide housing subsidies for claimants.
However, these are subject to strict criteria, including the requirement that there be no
opposition in the case. This has excluded some claimants from qualifying for the subsidy.
Official data suggests that in 2012 and 2013, the Agrarian Bank assigned 1,505 housing
subsidies to land claimants. However, only 97 homes were actually built in 2012, while none
were constructed in 2013. The slow pace of implementation is the result of several factors,
including the failure of the relevant local and national state authorities to effectively monitor
implementation of the housing subsidies, and poor tendering practices which result in
ineffective construction companies being rehired multiple times. 182
As most victims of forced displacement live in poverty, it is doubtful whether subsidies are
the most effective mechanism to guarantee housing and other rights for such victims, most of
whom will not be in position to cover the remaining cost. In response, a few restitution judges
have ordered the state to provide free housing, but only in a very limited number of cases. 183
The concept of good faith without culpability has also served to deny some victims their right
to land restitution. While the concept was designed to prevent straw men and those
responsible for forced displacement from legalizing their occupation of illegally acquired
lands, most opponents to date have either been victims or peasant farmers who had no role in
the forced displacement of the claimant. According to the Office of the Procurator General, in
almost all land restitution cases in which there has been an opponent, the opponent has
been a victim or a peasant farmer who innocently occupied the land being claimed.
Opponents have not tended to be paramilitaries, members of guerrilla forces, drug traffickers
or individuals with powerful political and economic interests: those who are responsible for
the vast majority of forced displacements and illegal land acquisition. 184
Yet despite this, it is almost impossible for genuine good faith claimants to prove that they
did not know that the land was illegally seized. As a result, many victims, mainly peasant
farmers, are considered as being of bad faith and are denied compensation when they are
removed from land to make way for the original inhabitants to return. Consequently, some
judges are choosing to lower the burden of proof by interpreting good faith as simple good
faith rather than as good faith without culpability, which has allowed them to offer
compensation to opponents they believe to be victims of the conflict.
On the other hand, the falsification of land registry documents by paramilitaries and others
has enabled individuals who illegally occupied land to make a legal case that they acted in
good faith. Amnesty International has seen numerous official documents in Cesar Department
and other regions that show that land was bought at very low prices and subsequently sold on
at great profit.
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Many peasant farmers occupied land on forestry reserves, or were assigned to land by
INCORA and INCODER in areas that were subsequently declared forestry reserves. Under Law
1448, these claimants do not have the right to land restitution.185 As victims of the conflict
they should be compensated, either financially or with land elsewhere. However, since they
are currently ineligible for land restitution, their claims are not being admitted by the URT
and they have been unable to qualify for compensation.186
In some cases, INCORA/INCODER assigned land to families who subsequently fled due to the
conflict. INCORA/INCODER frequently refused to recognize these families as victims of
forced displacement and instead claimed that they voluntarily abandoned their land.
INCORA/INCODER subsequently assigned the abandoned land to new families, who were
often themselves forcibly displaced from other areas. These multiple claims for the same
land have created tensions within communities.
The slow pace of land restitution could make it easier for those who illegally acquired land to
legalize their ownership of the land. Law 791, approved in December 2002, cut by half the
amount of time required to legalize possession over lands that an individual had occupied to
a period of five years in cases where the land was deemed to be held in good faith, and 10
years where the occupier was deemed to be holding the land in bad faith. The law was
approved during an intense period of forced displacement: 412,553 people were forced to
flee their homes in 2002 alone.187 While these provisions could be beneficial to peasant
farmers who have occupied unused lands, there are concerns that Law 791 could provide a
means for those who benefited from forced displacement of legitimate occupants to legalize
their tenure.
January 2008 saw the approval of Law 1182, which reduced the time period required to
secure legal tenure over lands occupied with bad faith to five years. It also specified that the
law could specifically apply to land of under 10 hectares.
The time period for bad faith occupants was reversed in July 2012 by Law 1561. Lands
registered in the RTDAF are excluded from Law 1561. However, and as this report has noted,
Law 1448 stipulates that land claims cannot be included in the RTDAF until the land being
claimed is micro-focalized. And the slow pace of micro-focalization means that unless the
weaknesses in the implementation of the process as outlined in this report are addressed,
most land claimants are unlikely to benefit from land restitution, or even be included in the
RTDAF, by the time the law expires in 2021. There is, therefore, concern that the slow pace
of restitution could force some land claimants, who may be facing financial hardship as a
result of their forced displacement, to relinquish their claims, in turn giving more time to
those who acquired lands illegally to secure firmer land titles under Laws 791 or 1561. 188
LACK OF INSTITUTIONAL CO-ORDINATION AND CAPACITY

Article 26 of Law 1448 and Decree 4829 of 2011 stipulate that the institutions responsible
for implementing the land restitution process, such as the URT, UARIV, INCODER, the UNP
and local and regional government authorities, must collaborate harmoniously to ensure the
effective implementation of Law 1448, and that victims are treated with dignity. UARIV is
responsible for leading this co-ordination effort.
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However, the state institutions responsible for land restitution suffer from a number of
structural weaknesses. Many have significant budget constraints, and have proved unable to
effectively co-ordinate, and even communicate, with each other. Some state institutions,
such as INCORA/INCODER and the Superintendence of Notaries and Registry Offices, have a
history of numerous corruption scandals relating to the legalization of illegally acquired
lands.
One of the main challenges is the identification of lands for restitution, given the poor state
of the land registers (catastros) and the lack of land titles. In many parts of the country, land
is not officially registered. Where it is, records have often been mislaid or deliberately
destroyed, or are incomplete, out of date, incorrect or even false. Over the years, Amnesty
International has documented several cases of falsification of land registry documents. The
lack of accurate land registers, especially on state-owned lands, has proved to be a major
bottleneck in the land restitution process.
Many of the IT systems and information databases used by the various state bodies
responsible for land restitution, including those for mapping, are incompatible with each
other, and there have been delays in updating maps of areas earmarked for restitution, 189
which is the responsibility of IGAC.190 This has made it difficult for the URT and restitution
judges and magistrates to obtain speedy and accurate information in order to progress land
cases and to ensure effective implementation of their rulings. These delays have been
exacerbated by a lack of topographers in the URT and IGAC. The scarcity of topographers has
been partly blamed on the low wages in this sector, and has led to some restitution processes
grinding to a complete halt.191 Topographers play a pivotal role in the land restitution process
since they are responsible for identifying and demarcating the boundaries of the farmsteads
being claimed in the land restitution process.
The URT has also criticized the failure of INCODER to meet the 10-day deadline established
in Law 1448 for handing over land titles to claimants. 192 The URT has insisted that it
provides INCODER with all the information needed to issue land titles but that, because of a
lack of capacity, INCODER takes up to nine months to issue the titles. INCODER has
acknowledged that there have been delays, but argues that the 10-day deadline is difficult to
meet because the information provided by the URT is often incomplete, or because INCODER
is ordered to issue titles for land which cannot be the object of restitution, such as forestry
reserves.193
For example, in March 2013 a ruling on one of the farms to be returned under Law 1448 in
Chibolo, in Magdalena Department, ordered INCODER to issue the land title within the 10day timeframe. However, the land title was not issued until September of that year, and only
after the land claimants lawyers had issued several writs of protection of fundamental rights
(peticiones de tutela) to force INCODER to issue the land titles to the claimants. Without
land titles, the claimants were unable to access the other complementary measures ordered
by the judge in order to live sustainably on their land, such as the implementation of
agricultural projects. The lawyers representing the claimants believe that the delay was
caused by a variety of factors, including the need to obtain authorization from a number of
different institutions, the lack of officials to implement the order, the lack of interinstitutional co-ordination, and the lack of up-to-date information held by the relevant
institutions.194
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Some delays are caused by significant duplication of evidence gathering. The restitution
judges often ask for tests to be carried out or for evidence to be gathered even though the
work has already been undertaken by the URT, even though this is not required by law,
especially in cases where a claim is not being challenged. For example, judges will order
topographical surveys or the collection of testimonies from victims and witnesses, even
though this has often already been undertaken by the URT. According to an official state
evaluation of the land restitution process carried out in 2013, restitution judges asked for
additional evidence and/or tests, on issues such as identification of the farm, on the context
of violence and on evidence to prove whether the claimant was a victim, in 55% of the
restitution cases that were being processed by the judges, arguing that the evidence provided
by URT was insufficient.195
Article 84 of Law 1448 specifies what documents and information should be included in
land claims, but does not require judges to reject cases if all the correct paperwork has not
been submitted. However, on some occasions judges have rejected claims precisely for this
reason, although URT officials have claimed that judges often ask for information beyond
that which is required by law, and that this is slowing down the restitution process.
Some judges have argued that they have no option but to request tests carried out by URT be
repeated because of serious and fundamental errors, such as the wrong identification of the
land, the inclusion of ineligible land claimants or the failure to include opponents in the
judicial action.196 This has at times led to confusion between judges and other state entities.
For example, one judge asked IGAC to identify the land in a case presented to him by the
URT. IGAC reportedly told the judge they were unable to do so until the judge issued a ruling
on the case, while the judge said he was unable to issue a sentence until IGAC updated the
information on the identification of the land.197 In some cases, judges have had no option but
to return the judicial action for restitution, on repeated occasions, to the URT for correction.
This has led to significant delays in many restitution cases.
On the whole, judges and magistrates have increasingly adopted a progressive interpretation
of Law 1448 and have ordered the implementation of a range of complementary measures in
their rulings to ensure that peasant farmers can return to their lands in a sustainable manner.
These measures often go beyond what is strictly stipulated in Law 1448, and have included
debt and tax forgiveness for longer periods than envisioned in Law 1448, housing restitution,
and granting compensation to opponents that have not proved their good faith without
culpability. In all, 85% of rulings include measures on housing, 74% on agricultural projects,
56% on health programmes, 52% on education and employment programmes and 25% on
infrastructure improvements.198 This interpretative autonomy is largely due to the fact that
Law 1448 has implemented a transitional justice model that has given the restitution judges
and magistrates more room for manoeuvre than ordinary judges in Colombia. While this has
been positive, as is shown by the many progressive rulings issued, it has also resulted in a
lack of consistency in many rulings.
However, the progressive stance of many judges and magistrates is being undermined by the
fact that in many cases their rulings are not being effectively implemented. This is partly
because many local and regional government and state institutions, which are responsible for
implementing many of the complementary measures, simply lack the political will or the
financial resources to effectively implement the judicial orders. Some regional institutions are
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also plagued by corruption. Links between local and regional government and state
institutions and corrupt regional political and economic elites, paramilitaries, and to a lesser
degree guerrilla groups, have been well documented. 199 The land restitution process, which is
being driven by the national government, is viewed by many regional and local elites as an
attempt by central government to undermine local and regional political and economic
interests. These elites could thus undermine land restitution, through the control they
exercise over some local and regional institutions.
The latest official evaluation report on implementation of Law 1448, published in August
2014, also highlighted the fact that judges and magistrates are generally failing to direct the
orders to the relevant state entities and to set specific timeframes for implementing the
orders. This is causing significant delays in implementation since there is confusion about
which state institution is responsible for implementing specific measures. 200 This has been
exacerbated by the failure of SNARIV, which is responsible for co-ordinating the
implementation of Law 1448, to effectively follow-up on the implementation of the orders.
According to one NGO working on land restitution, the lack of co-ordination between state
institutions and the lack of political will to implement judges orders was highlighted during a
ceremony on 19 September 2013 to mark the inauguration of the Casa del Balcn, a
community building in La Pola farm. The farm, which is part of the restitution process in
Chibolo Municipality, was destroyed by paramilitaries when they ransacked the area and
forced the community from their lands. The ceremony was the official act marking the
restitution of the communitys lands. During the ceremony, state representatives made a
number of commitments to rebuild the community, including the provision of a school and a
health post, as part of reparation efforts to support the community. But a year later, very few
of the commitments to rebuild the community, such as the school, have materialized. 201
One restitution judge who spoke to Amnesty International at the end of 2013 complained
that despite repeated commitments, the authorities have failed to implement his rulings. In
particular, he highlighted delays in implementing his orders to INCODER to issue land titles
and disburse subsidies for agricultural projects and housing. He also stated that he had
transferred 15 cases to restitution magistrates because these cases were being challenged by
opponents. So far, magistrates had issued rulings in favour of the claimant in six of these
cases; however, in none of these cases had the authorities succeeded in removing the
opponent from the land.202 Another restitution judge complained that despite ordering
improvements to road infrastructure in some of his rulings, disagreements about which
authority was responsible for financing this had meant that the orders had not been
implemented.203
Many of the NGOs and state institutions that spoke to Amnesty International identified the
micro-focalization process as the main bottleneck for land restitution. They complained that
the micro-focalization process, which is the responsibility of COLR, was being used to limit
the number of areas open to restitution, rather than as a safeguard mechanism to ensure that
an area was safe before it became eligible for land restitution. Although in theory the Defence
Ministry does not have a veto over decisions made by COLR, in practice, objections from the
Ministry have on several occasions blocked particular areas from being micro-focalized.204
Inconsistency and a lack of co-ordination in the Defence Ministrys implementation of the
micro-focalization process has also been criticized.205 CI2RT is the Defence Ministry
department responsible for providing information about the security situation in a particular
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area, as a prerequisite for selecting the area for micro-focalization. The security information
provided by CI2RT has at times been contradictory and too general to be of any practical use.
For example, on occasions CI2RT has claimed that an area is unpopulated when local NGOs
say this is not the case, or there is no information provided about the presence of illegal
armed groups in a particular area, or the information is too broad, covering only the
municipal or departmental level rather than the local level. It also appears that in some
areas, the police and the armed forces are implementing different concepts of security, with
the police, who are responsible for accompanying some communities during the restitution
process, refusing to enter certain areas because of security concerns. 206
In March 2014, the government presented legislation to reform Law 1448 by seeking to
introduce an administrative mechanism for land restitution in those cases where there is no
opposition to a claim. According to the reform, the URT would become responsible for the
adjudication of land without having to go through a judicial procedure. The reform is based
on the premise that the judicial phase is the principal bottleneck in the restitution process.
Although the bill was withdrawn in May 2014 it is likely to be reintroduced.
However, as this report has shown, other significant obstructions exist, which would not be
resolved through such a reform. For example, bottlenecks occur during the process of macroand micro-focalization, which has given the Defence Ministry de facto authority to severely
limit the number of areas where land restitution can be implemented. Delays are also caused
by the national institutions responsible for implementing Law 1448, such as the URT,
INCODER and IGAC, which do not have the capacity to process claims in a timely and
effective manner, while other national and local institutions have failed to implement many
of the measures ordered by restitution judges and magistrates.
Law 1448 is also extremely complex and difficult to navigate for many victims. For example,
despite the principle which reverses the burden of proof, victims are still required to present
significant amounts of paperwork, much of which may have been lost when they fled their
homes, and fill in several forms to file a claim. Land claimants, some of whom are illiterate,
require the help of lawyers from human rights NGOs or the URT to navigate the process and
make a claim. But both the URT and the local human rights NGOs have limited funds to
support victims.
Many claimants are required to travel long distances to make a claim. Most lack the
economic resources to make the journey, and the URT does not provide victims with
economic support for transport or related expenses. This acts as a disincentive for victims
considering making a land restitution claim. All of these factors combine to prevent
dispossessed peasant farmers from making a claim, and slow the process for those who do
make a claim.
ONGOING GENDER DISCRIMINATION

In April 2008, the Constitutional Court issued a ruling Judicial Decision 092 of 2008 (Auto
092) on the rights of women forcibly displaced by the conflict. It affirmed that forced
displacement had a disproportionate impact, in quantitative and qualitative terms on
women, and that pressures on women to leave their lands were more pronounced due to their
historic lack of land rights, especially over rural properties.
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The ruling also made specific references to the obstacles faced by women with regards to
land ownership: women heads of household, particularly widows, are more vulnerable with
regards to the uncertainty of tenancy and the capacity to service debts incurred with little
possibility of mobilizing the strength of family work, lack of technical training on productive
processes and debt management. And quoting a 2005 INCODER report, the ruling stated:
In terms of the effective right to land, the mere assignation or adjudication of land, without
training and accompaniment, does not meet the objectives of equity.
Law 1448 has therefore adopted a gender perspective, and includes measures designed to
assist women in their land claims and to realize equality in their access to land generally.
Such measures include preferential access in the administrative and judicial phases of the
land restitution process, additional security measures to ensure that women claimants can
return to their land, and preferential access to credit. Also, most importantly, Law 1448
stipulates that the restitution judges must grant ownership of land to both the woman and her
partner even if the original land title was held only by her male partner. 207
However, women continue to face numerous challenges in their efforts to realize such rights.
Despite actively participating in agriculture and related land-based activity together with
men, women rarely feature as owners, landholders or occupants in legal and other
documentation, if such documentation even exists. For example, when land was adjudicated
by INCORA under Law 160 of 1994, it was the husband or male partners name that often
featured on the legal documentation, and not the womans name.
According to information from the RTDAF register from the end of February 2014, in more
than three-quarters of all land cases included in the register in which the claim was being
made on behalf of a couple, the claim was made by the man rather than the woman. 208
Law 1448, in recognition of the informality of ownership, has put limits on the amount of
paperwork and information that has to be provided by claimants to demonstrate that they
have a right to a particular plot of land. However, the law still requires claimants to at least
provide basic information, such as who has lived on the land, who owns it or claims rights
over it, and its precise size and geographical location. Requesting this information may seem
reasonable but, critically, it is often the type of information that is administered by the man
in a relationship. Therefore women claimants can find it difficult to produce such
information, especially if they are no longer with their partner or if their partner has died.
The land restitution process also places undue weight on determining the relationship of the
woman to the male land claimant. It is often the sole factor in deciding a womans claim,
rather than looking at whether a woman has an autonomous right to that land, for instance
because she worked on the land, irrespective of her status with the male claimant. Womens
work tends not to be acknowledged as a factor in determining a womans right to access to
land.
In those cases where a woman cannot demonstrate her direct and autonomous right to a plot
of land as, for example, the owner, landholder or occupant, but she can demonstrate that she
was in a relationship with the male land claimant at the time they were forcibly displaced,
some Colombian womens organizations have suggested that restitution judges should
automatically grant them joint ownership, rather than only including the male partner on the
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land title as has so often been the case in the past. 209 It appears that most, but not all,
judges and magistrates do now issue joint ownership in such cases. The restitution judges
therefore have a critical role in ensuring that womens access to land is respected, beyond
their mere formal rights of ownership.
According to one Colombian womens organization that has worked closely with women land
claimants and has followed a number of restitution cases both in the administrative and
judicial phases, the URT has accepted that women have an autonomous right in terms land
ownership. However, in the organizations view, some judges still interpret such rights in
terms of the womans relationship to her male partner, and in many restitution cases, judges
still tend to call only on the male partner to give evidence. 210
THE RESTITUTION OF INDIGENOUS AND AFRO-DESCENDANT TERRITORIES

The state agencies responsible for evaluating implementation of Law 1448 have
acknowledged that there have been severe delays in the restitution process for Indigenous
and Afro-descendant communities, many of which continue to be negatively affected by
mining and other large economic projects.
By the end of June 2014, the URT had identified 95 Indigenous and 32 Afro-descendant
territories as possible land restitution cases, and initiated the actual characterization phase
in 25 of these cases (16 Indigenous and nine Afro-descendant territories).211 By 1 August
2014, the characterization phase of only four Indigenous and two Afro-descendant territories
had been concluded and transferred to the judicial phase for adjudication. 212 By September
2014, only one of these six cases the 50,000 hectare Embera Kato Indigenous reservation
of Alto Andgueda in Bagad Municipality, Choc Department had been adjudicated.
Indigenous and Afro-descendant organizations have expressed concern over the lack of
consultation in the land restitution process. One of the main Afro-descendant organizations,
the Process of Black Communities (Proceso de Comunidades Negras, PCN), told Amnesty
International that the Colombian authorities failed to consult with them during the
elaboration of the Decree Law on land restitution, despite the government unilaterally
accepting many of PCNs proposals for the Decree Law. PCN also told Amnesty International
that it does not have official high-level contacts with the institutions responsible for land
restitution, including the URT, and so have been unable to carry out joint monitoring of the
implementation of land restitution with the authorities.213
Colombias main Indigenous organization, the National Indigenous Organization of Colombia
(Organizacin Nacional Indgena de Colombia, ONIC) told Amnesty International that while
the Indigenous Decree Law had been consulted with them, many of their proposals had not
been taken on board. This included their proposal to include restitution cases prior to 1991,
since many Indigenous communities were forcibly displaced from their territories prior to that
date. ONIC noted the failure of the URT to keep communities and ONIC informed about
progress in the territorial restitution cases.214
ONIC also expressed concern about possible tensions and conflict between Indigenous
communities and peasant farmers seeking land restitution in reservations or ancestral lands
belonging to Indigenous Peoples. Although the law prohibits the titling of land to peasant
Index: AMR 23/031/2014
50

farmers in Indigenous reserves, no such restrictions appear to be in place for land in

ancestral territories, which are not legally recognized.
The state agencies evaluating Law 1448 also noted that the URT has neither the quality nor
number of staff needed to implement the Indigenous and Afro-descent restitution process
effectively, and criticized the lack of co-ordination between the Interior Ministry, UARIV and
the URT in this respect.215 Furthermore, they noted a lack of dissemination of information to
these communities on the process for claiming restitution, as required by Law 1448. These
failings were compounded by failures to work around the communities particular cultural
traditions, by the fact that many do not speak Spanish and live in isolated regions, and the
lack of training for officials implementing the relevant decrees.
The URTs work on Indigenous and Afro-descendant territories has also been negatively
affected by the lack of security in many of the territories under analysis. This has contributed
to delays in initiating the restitution process and in implementing the precautionary
measures, designed to protect these communities from further land theft while the restitution
process advances. Of the few restitution rulings on precautionary measures to date, most
have highlighted the threat that mining and agro-industrial projects pose for the rights of
Indigenous and Afro-descendant communities.
By 1 August 2014, only five precautionary measures three for Afro-descendant
communities and two for Indigenous communities had been presented by the URT and
authorized by restitution judges.216 According to the Office of the Human Rights
Ombudsman, four of these date back to 2012 and none were issued in 2013, despite a
commitment by the URT to present 16 precautionary measures that year. Only one has been
issued so far in 2014. According to the Office of the Human Rights Ombudsman,
precautionary measures were being vetoed by the Defence Ministry because the Ministry
claimed it did not have the resources to implement them. 217
The URT told Amnesty International that the single precautionary measure presented by the
URT and authorized by a judge in 2014 had not required any action to be taken by the
security forces and so did not necessitate authorization by the Defence Ministry. The URT
also acknowledged that a request it made in 2014 for precautionary measures for the Afrodescendant community of Pedeguita Mansilla, in Riosucio Municipality, Choc Department,
was blocked by the Defence Ministry.218 In August 2014, a restitution judge did authorize a
precautionary measure for an Indigenous community in Cesar Department, but the request
had been made by ONIC and not the URT.219
The URT has also claimed that delays in the restitution process as a whole have been caused
by the prevalence of the armed conflict in Indigenous and Afro-descendant territories, as well
as by the authorities lack of information about these territories, and a lack of knowledge and
understanding about the restitution process on the part of these communities. The URT has
stated that it made considerable efforts in 2013 to initiate a dialogue with these
communities, to disseminate information about land restitution, and to train officials and
community leaders on issues relating to process. 220 But Indigenous leaders have said that the
URT failed to consult with them effectively during the preliminary studies to identify
potential cases, and during the characterization process. 221
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51
Moreover, Law 1448 does not provide these communities with full protection from mining
interests that, in some cases, may be linked to the economic interests that backed the efforts
to illegally acquire these communities lands in the first place. Article 13 of Law 685 of
2001 (the Mining Code), declares mining to be of public interest (utilidad pblica). It
gives the state strong powers to expropriate lands to enable the development of mining
projects. The administration of President Santos made clear in its 2010-2014 National
Development Plan (NDP) that mining was to be one of the driving forces of the economy.222
To promote mining, the government included provision for the creation of strategic mining
areas in Law 1450 of 16 June 2011, the law that approved the NDP.223
In 2012, the state National Mining Agency (Agencia Nacional de Minera) issued Resolution
18-0241 and Resolution No.45. The two resolutions declared millions of hectares of land,
including in areas with Indigenous reservations and Afro-descendant collective territories, to
be strategic mining areas, including in the departments of Amazonas, Antioquia, Bolvar,
Cauca, Cesar, Choc, Guaina, Nario, Norte de Santander, Putumayo, Quindo, Risaralda,
Tolima, Valle del Cauca, Vaups and Vichada.
However, the Constitutional Court, in Sentence C-418 of 2002, had already stated that
mining areas in Indigenous territories could only be created through a process of prior
consultation with the communities affected. It ruled that the creation of what were then to be
called Indigenous mining areas, under the terms of the 2001 Mining Code, was
unconstitutional, pointing to Article 15 of ILO Convention 169, which underlines the right of
Indigenous Peoples to participate and determine the use of natural resources linked to their
lands and the right to consultation before allowing exploration or exploitation, and to Article
330 of the Colombian Constitution, which provides Indigenous communities a certain degree
of control over the management of their territories.
It is not clear whether the Constitutional Court ruling also applies to Afro-descendant
territories. It is of concern, therefore, that both resolutions by the National Mining Agency
quoted a statement issued by the Prior Consultation Directorate (Direccin de Consulta
Previa) of the Interior Ministry of 20 February 2012, stating that since the creation of
Indigenous mining areas merely expressed the expectation that a mining project might
develop, the creation of such areas therefore does not have to be subject to consultation with
Indigenous and Afro-descendant communities. The consultation process would, instead, have
to be carried out by the mining interest securing the concession.224 By having earmarked
Indigenous territories for mining without first consulting the communities affected, in
contravention of Constitutional Court Sentence C-418 of 2002, the government risks
undermining the effectiveness of any future consultation process.
FAILING TO GUARANTEE THE RIGHT TO NON-REPETITION, INCLUDING IMPUNITY

The right to non-repetition, including measures to ensure that those suspected of criminal
responsibility for human rights abuses and violations are investigated and, if there is
sufficient admissible evidence, prosecuted, is one of the central tenets of victims right to an
effective remedy.225 Law 1448 recognizes that victims of the conflict have a right to full
reparation.226 However, as stated earlier in this report, the armed conflict has and continues
to be marked by very high levels of impunity for human rights abuses and violations.
Meanwhile, the states acknowledgement of the right to remedy is weakened by the
governments support for legislation that will undermine the fight against impunity.
Index: AMR 23/031/2014
52

In June 2012, Congress approved an amendment to the Constitution the Legal Framework
for Peace which could enable alleged human rights abusers to evade justice. This
amendment gives Congress the power to limit criminal trials to those most responsible for
human rights abuses and violations, and to suspend the prison sentences handed down to all
paramilitary, guerrilla and security force combatants convicted of such crimes. In August
2013, the Constitutional Court upheld the constitutionality of the law but ruled that the
sentences of those most responsible could not be completely suspended if they were
responsible for crimes against humanity, genocide or war crimes. However, there is no clear
definition of, or criteria to determine, most responsible. 227
Moreover, in a context in which the legal framework established to oversee the supposed
demobilization of paramilitaries Law 975 of 2005 has not guaranteed full and impartial
investigations into human rights violations committed by paramilitaries and all those in
politics and business who continue to back them, and with the existence of a legal framework
that still ensures that the military justice system can maintain jurisdiction over many cases of
human rights violations, there can be little guarantee that all those most responsible for
abuses will be identified.
In December 2012, Congress approved a further reform of the Constitution that would have
given military courts greater control over criminal investigations into cases in which members
of the security forces are implicated in human rights violations. Although the Constitutional
Court threw out the reform on procedural grounds in October 2013, in September of that year
the government presented a bill to Congress that, if approved, would go even further in
granting the military justice system the authority to investigate and prosecute members of the
security forces implicated in human rights violations, including some cases of extrajudicial
executions and sexual crimes.228
As Amnesty International has previously explained in detail [t]he jurisdiction of military
courts over criminal cases should be limited to trials of military personnel for breaches of
military discipline.229 The organization calls for trials of human rights violations and crimes
under international law to take place before civilian not military courts, given concerns
about impunity and the lack of independence and impartiality of military courts.
It is important to underline that Colombias current Military Criminal Code of Justice already
contains provisions that guarantee the jurisdiction of military justice over human rights
violation cases. Language in the new bill, which is still being debated at the time of writing,
could strengthen the jurisdiction of the military justice system over human rights violations,
including those committed by paramilitaries operating in collusion with the security forces.
These reforms could not only limit the possibility of victims of human rights abuses and
violations being officially recognized as such, thus undermining their right to reparation, but
also encourage further forced displacements and land grabs since the perpetrators will feel
confident that they can act without fear of any consequences.
In their rulings, some restitution judges and magistrates have sought to examine the causes
and consequences of forced displacement and land grabs, including by identifying those
suspected of criminal responsibility in such crimes, and have called on the Office of the
Attorney General to open criminal investigations into such cases. However, according to the
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53
August 2014 official report into the implementation of Law 1448, only a few judges and
magistrates have issued such specific orders to the Office of the Attorney General.230 Article
91 of Law 1448 gives judges and magistrates the authority to issue such orders.
Index: AMR 23/031/2014
54

Index: AMR 23/031/2014

55
6. CONCLUSIONS AND
RECOMMENDATIONS
Law 1448 will result in some victims of the conflict gaining formal ownership over their
lands. But the land restitution process has not yet resolved the problems faced either by
those not yet able to return to the landholdings from which they were dispossessed or were
forced to abandon, often through violence, or by landless victims of forced displacement who,
regardless, do not qualify for land restitution under Law 1448. Law 1448 also contains
certain provisions, and has some inherent flaws that, coupled with other legislative measures,
may make it easier for occupants of illegally acquired lands to secure legal ownership over
them.
The real measure of success of Law 1448 will therefore be whether it creates the conditions
to enable those forcibly displaced, and whose lands were illegally acquired, to return in safety
and under sustainable conditions. Only then will the victims fundamental right to effective
remedy be guaranteed.
The informality of land ownership in Colombia has traditionally made it easier to remove
people from their lands since many occupants have lacked enforceable land titles. This
informality, together with the armed conflict, has meant that land has been difficult to value
in monetary terms, and thus difficult to market. This situation of legal instability has acted as
a drag on investment or as a restraint for business interests to derive full profit from land that
may have been illegally acquired through human rights abuses, either through the sale or
exploitation of such land. Law 1448 could therefore be viewed as an attempt to address this
instability, by formalizing land ownership and in so doing making land easier to sell.
However, the government has claimed that Law 1448 is part of an effort to ensure respect for
victims right to full reparation and to secure their political, civil, economic, social and
cultural rights. If this is indeed a key objective of Law 1448, and as this report has shown,
the government will need to implement effective measures to enable those returning to
remain on their land in the long-term in a sustainable manner. A failure to do so, coupled
with ongoing concerns about security not only for land claimants but also for community
leaders, human rights defenders, and state officials involved in the land restitution process
could mean that those returning to their farmlands will face little choice but to sell their
lands, most likely to large agro-industrial or mining companies. The persistence of conflictrelated violence and a lack of state support will also make it difficult for Indigenous and Afrodescendant communities to remain on their collective territories.
Armed actors are therefore not the only participants in forced displacement and land grabs in
Colombia. Sustainable land restitution will not be possible unless the authorities
acknowledge and address the part played by large-scale economic interests, notably the
extractive industries, logging, monocultures such agro-fuels, as well as drug trafficking, in
contributing to and benefiting from the illegal acquisition of land.
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56

As this report has shown, the land restitution process, while marking an important step
forward in efforts to respect victims right to full reparation, including land restitution, is still
beset by numerous difficulties. The lack of effective security guarantees is one of the
principal concerns in efforts to return land to the rightful occupants, and is the issue that
has, rightly, received the most attention. But it is clearly not the only, or even the most
critical, obstacle to land restitution, if one defines restitution as the first phase in efforts to
ensure that Indigenous, Afro-descendant and peasant farmer communities can sustain
themselves economically, politically, socially and culturally on their lands and territories.
The restitution process is making some progress, albeit at a very slow pace, although as is
highlighted in this report, many victims are unlikely to ever qualify for restitution, while many
who do qualify could wait a decade to see their rights to full reparation realized. The
obstacles to restitution, and the difficulties and challenges faced by those implementing the
process, are numerous.
One factor that is most likely to determine whether Law 1448 is a success in the long-term is
impunity. Very few of those with criminal responsibility for human rights abuses and
violations, especially those suspected of involvement in or benefiting from forced
displacement, have ever been effectively investigated by the judicial authorities and brought
to justice for their crimes. Worryingly, new legislation and other initiatives in the pipeline
could exacerbate the problem of impunity, emboldening still further those who seek to
forcibly displace communities and grab their lands.
Little has been done to identify, investigate, prosecute and dismantle those regional
economic and political power structures including politicians, businesspeople, state
officials and members of the security forces that have executed, supported, commissioned
and benefited from forced displacement and land grabs. These structures still exert
territorial, political and economic control in many parts of the country, and some are
responsible for the killings of and threats against land claimants and activists. In some cases,
they are the same structures with responsibility for implementing key aspects of Law 1448 in
the regions. If land restitution is to be a success, these particular regional and local political
and economic structures will need to be tackled effectively.
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL CALLS ON THE COLOMBIAN GOVERNMENT TO:

Protect those involved in the land restitution process:
Take decisive action to guarantee the safety and comprehensive protection of land
claimants, those campaigning for land restitution, as well as state officials involved in land
restitution, and restitution judges and magistrates.
Issue a directive to the UNP instructing it to implement a protection programme for land
claimants and activists based on a collective and human rights-based model. This programme
should be adequately resourced, adopt a gender perspective and a differentiated approach,
give priority to preventative as well as reactive measures, be based on a legal presumption of
risk, and be developed and implemented with the active participation of the affected
communities.
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57
Ensure that procedural safeguards are in place to guarantee that the justice system is
not misused to target human rights defenders (HRDs), including land activists, as set out by
the 2013 UN Human Rights Council Resolution on protecting human rights defenders and by
the 1998 UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders.
Publicly recognize the legitimacy of the defence of land rights, prohibit public officials
from making statements and accusations against communities, organizations and HRDs
campaigning on land rights, and hold accountable those state officials who do so.
Guarantee the sustainability of land restitution:

Fulfil Colombias binding obligation to provide effective remedy for victims of the armed
conflict, including victims of forced displacement and the illegal acquisition of land, as
stipulated in UN treaties, such as the ICCPR and the ICESCR, and in the American
Convention on Human Rights.
Ensure that the right of victims to full reparation is fully respected by implementing the
UN Basic Principles and Guidelines on the Right to a Remedy and Reparation for Victims of
Violations of International Human Rights and Humanitarian Law and the UN Principles on
Housing and Property Restitution for Refugees and Displaced Persons (the Pinheiro
Principles).
Extend the 10-year limit of the application of Law 1448 to ensure that the right of all
land claimants to restitution is respected and to ensure this limitation does not become a
means to grant de facto legal security to those illegally occupying lands.
Ensure that the state bodies responsible for implementing the land restitution process
are adequately resourced to enable them to effectively guarantee the right of all victims of
the conflict to full reparation, including land restitution. The principle of fiscal
sustainability should not become a factor that could limit the right of victims to full
reparation, including land restitution.
Amend Articles 3 and 75 of Law 1448, which restrict the eligibility for reparation
depending on the date on which human rights abuses and violations were carried out, to
ensure that all victims of the conflict can benefit from its provisions.
Repeal Article 99 on contracts of use which, despite Constitutional Court Sentences
C-715 and C-820 of 2012 making such contracts voluntary, could undermine the livelihood
of those returning to their lands.
Replace the macro- and micro-focalization mechanism for identifying lands for
restitution, which is implemented from a largely security-based perspective and is severely
limiting the number of areas eligible for land restitution, with an alternative process involving
a broad cross-section of state institutions and community representatives and in which
decisions are based on addressing a variety of risk factors that may undermine sustainable
land restitution.
Index: AMR 23/031/2014
58

Ensure that the standards on housing established in the Pinheiro Principles are fully
implemented, since subsidies, as set out in Law 1448, are not an effective mechanism to
guarantee the right to housing for victims of forced displacement.
Fully comply with Constitutional Court Sentence T-025 of 2004 on protecting the rights
of forcibly displaced people, and implement the UN Guiding Principles on Internal
Displacement (Deng Principles).
Ensure that the state bodies responsible for implementing the land restitution process
co-operate effectively with each other and ensure the participation of civil society, including
victims, in monitoring the implementation of Law 1448.
Uphold the rights of women and girls:

Comply with Constitutional Court Judicial Decision 092 of 2008 (Auto 092) on women
and displacement, and Judicial Decision 098 of 2013 (Auto 098) on the protection of
women leaders of forcibly displaced communities.
Ensure effective implementation of Law 1257 of 2008 and Law 1719 of 2014, both of
which include measures to combat violence against women.
Uphold the rights of Indigenous People and Afro-descendant communities:

Respect the right of Afro-descendant and Indigenous communities to free, prior and
informed consent in the implementation of Decrees 4633 and 4635, which regulate the
territorial restitution processes for these communities.
Take effective measures, in line with the UN Guiding Principles on Internal
Displacement (Deng Principles), to prevent the forced displacement of Indigenous Peoples
and Afro-descendant communities, who have a special dependency on or relationship with
their territories.
Comply with the 2009 Constitutional Court Judicial Decisions on displacement and
Indigenous People (Auto 009) and Afro-descendant communities (Auto 005).
Implement preventative protection measures for Indigenous People and Afro-descendant
communities, which should be agreed with the communities themselves, and be in line with
international protection standards, including ILO Convention 169 and the UN Declaration on
the Rights of Indigenous People.
Repeal legislation that could facilitate mining or other economic projects on lands
belonging to or claimed by Indigenous People and Afro-descendant communities without
these communities free, prior and informed consent.
Ensure guarantees of non-repetition, and end impunity for forced displacement:

Carry out effective and impartial investigations into human rights abuses and violations,
including those against land claimants and human rights defenders, and into forced
displacement, and bring to justice in ordinary civilian courts those suspected of criminal
responsibility for such crimes.
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59
Reject any legislative measure to broaden the scope of military jurisdiction, such as
Senate bill No. 85 of 2013 and ensure that all cases of human rights violations, crimes
under international law or even ordinary crimes are investigated and prosecuted by ordinary
civilian courts and that any such cases already in the military justice system are transferred
to civilian courts.
Repeal any legislative measure, such as the Legal Framework for Peace, which will allow
human rights abusers, including those responsible for forced displacement, to evade justice
in ordinary civilian courts.
Take decisive action to confront and dismantle paramilitary groups, and investigate and
break their link with sectors of the security forces, in accordance with repeated UN
recommendations. Also, investigate and prosecute those in business and politics who have
colluded or continue to collude with paramilitary groups to commit human rights violations.
Ensure that effective and impartial investigations and prosecutions are carried out into
public officials suspected of criminal responsibility in forced displacement and the illegal
acquisition of land, and into any links such officials might have to paramilitary groups.
Instruct the Land Restitution Unit to:

Guarantee that victims of paramilitary structures (referred to as Bacrim by the
authorities) are not excluded from the land restitution process, in line with Constitutional
Court Sentence C-781 of 2012, and issue a directive to this effect to all its regional offices.
Ensure that it complies with Constitutional Court Sentence C-715 of 2012, which
declared unconstitutional wording in Law 1448 that excludes from qualifying for land
restitution those deemed to have taken illegal action to campaign for the return of their
illegally acquired lands.
Ensure it registers those land claims that are currently excluded because they are not
located in areas that have been macro- or micro-focalized.
Ensure that it processes land claims within the time limits stipulated in law.
Guarantee to fund the travel and other expenses of victims, most of whom live in
situations of poverty, to enable them to travel to URT offices to make their claim, and to
other locations as required by the land restitution process.
Ensure that the restitution of Indigenous and Afro-descendant territories is effectively
and efficiently implemented, and that the land rights of Indigenous and Afro-descendant
communities who do not live in legally recognized collective territories, including in urban
areas, are also fully respected.
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL RECOMMENDS THAT RESTITUTION JUDGES AND

MAGISTRATES SHOULD CONSIDER:
Ensuring that land claimants receive a comprehensive compensation package to take
into account lost opportunities, including in terms of employment, education and social
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60

benefits, and material damages and loss of earnings, including loss of earning potential, in
line with the UN Basic Principles and Guidelines on the Right to a Remedy and Reparation.
Taking fully into account the often invisible role that women have played in the use of
land to determine womens land rights, rather than relying predominantly on legal
documentation, including legal proof of ownership.
Incorporating an analysis of the experience of women in the conflict, including their
situation at the time they were forcibly displaced, in order to identify the obstacles that have
prevented women from enjoying their land and other rights.
Ensuring that land titles are provided to successful land claimants within the time frame
stipulated in law, and that deadlines are set for implementing the complementary orders
included in rulings. Those public officials who fail to comply with these orders within the
established deadlines should be sanctioned.
Taking into account the vulnerability of an opponent (if they are a victim of the conflict)
when defining good faith without culpability to ensure that such opponents enjoy the right
to compensation as stipulated in Law 1448.
Giving priority to the investigation of the causes and consequences of forced
displacement and land grabs, including by identifying those suspected of criminal
responsibility in such crimes, and reflecting this in their rulings, as well as by calling on the
Office of the Attorney General to investigate such crimes.
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL CALLS ON THE GOVERNMENT AND THE GUERRILLA TO:

Ensure that the peace process fully respects the right of all victims to truth, justice and
reparation, and that all those suspected of criminal responsibility for crimes under
international law, without exception, will be brought to trial before ordinary civilian courts.
Make a verifiable commitment to put an immediate end to human rights violations and
abuses and violations of international humanitarian law.
Immediately and fully implement the recommendations on Colombia of the UN High
Commissioner for Human Rights and those of the Inter-American human rights system and
other international human rights bodies and mechanisms.
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL CALLS ON THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY TO:

Call on the Colombian government to take the actions outlined above and provide the
government with any assistance it may require to do so.
Guarantee that it is not providing funds to economic projects on lands illegally acquired
through human rights abuses and which allow the perpetrators to benefit from such lands.
Ensure that companies based abroad that are investing in Colombia do not benefit from
lands illegally acquired through human rights abuses and violations.
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61
ENDNOTES
For an analysis of the use of forced displacement in the context of Colombias armed conflict see
Amnesty International, Return to hope: Forcibly displaced communities of Urab and Medio Atrato
region, (Index: AMR 23/023/2000) and Everything Left Behind: Internal displacement in Colombia,
(Index: AMR 23/015/2009).
1
The Final Study of the Human Rights Council Advisory Committee on the advancement of the rights of
peasants and other people working in rural areas, 23 January 2012, UN Doc. A/HRC/AC/8/6, defines a
peasant as: a man or woman of the land, who has a direct and special relationship with the land and
nature through the production of food or other agricultural products. Peasants work the land themselves
and rely above all on family labour and other small-scale forms of organizing labour. Peasants are
traditionally embedded in their local communities and they take care of local landscapes and of agroecological systems. 2. The term peasant can apply to any person engaged in agriculture, cattle-raising,
pastoralism, handicrafts-related to agriculture or a related occupation in a rural area. This includes
indigenous people working on the land. 3. The term peasant also applies to landless [people]. According
to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization definition, the following categories of people are considered
to be landless and are likely to face difficulties in ensuring their livelihood: 1. Agricultural labour
households with little or no land; 2. Non-agricultural households in rural areas, with little or no land,
whose members are engaged in various activities such as fishing, making crafts for the local market, or
providing services; 3. Other rural households of pastoralists, nomads, peasants practising shifting
cultivation, hunters and gatherers, and people with similar livelihoods.
2
CODHES, El Desplazamiento Forzado y la Imperiosa Necesidad de la Paz, informe desplazamiento

2013, 2014.
3
National Centre of Historic Memory, Basta Ya! Memorias de Guerra y Dignidad, 2013.
Internal displacement is defined in the UN Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement as persons or

groups of persons who have been forced or obliged to flee or to leave their homes or places of habitual
residence, in particular as a result of or in order to avoid the effects of armed conflict, situations of
generalized violence, violations of human rights or natural or human-made disasters, and who have not
crossed an internationally recognized state border. In Colombia, however, the term forced
displacement is more commonly used, including by relevant human rights institutions such as the Office
in Colombia of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and, as such, this report will use the term
to describe the act of conflict-related internal displacement.
5
Several Amnesty International reports have drawn the link between human rights abuses, including
forced displacements, and economic interests, including: Return to hope: Forcibly displaced
communities of Urab and Medio Atrato region, (Index: AMR 23/023/2000); Killings, arbitrary
detentions, and death threats the reality of trade unionism in Colombia, (Index: AMR 23/001/2007)
and Laboratory of war Repression and violence in Arauca, (Index: AMR 23/004/2004).
6
For an analysis of human rights violations and abuses and violations of international humanitarian law
committed in the context of the internal armed conflict see the Colombia chapter of Amnesty
Internationals annual reports for the past several years. The most recent annual report (published in
2013) is available at: www.amnesty.org/en/annual-report/2013
7
Index: AMR 23/031/2014
62

For a general overview of the human rights consequences of Colombias armed conflict see Amnesty
International, Leave us in peace!: Targeting civilians in Colombias internal armed conflict, (Index: AMR
23/023/2008).
8
For an examination of the issue of impunity in Colombia see Amnesty International, Leave us in
peace!: Targeting civilians in Colombia's internal armed conflict, (Index: AMR 23/023/2008).
9
National Centre of Historic Memory, Memorias del despojo y resistencias campesinas en la costa
Caribe (1960- 2010), 2014.
10
There are no official statistics on the number of peasant farmers in Colombia, but according to a
UNDP report, El Campesinado, Reconocimiento para construir pas, 2011, several academic studies
have suggested figures ranging from 6-7 million.
11
Principal 11, UN Basic Principles and Guidelines on the Right to a Remedy and Reparation for
Victims of Gross Violations of International Human Rights Law and Serious Violations of International
Humanitarian Law, UN Doc. A/RES/60/147, 21 March 2006.
12
For an overview of the human rights consequences of Colombias armed conflict see Amnesty
International, Leave us in peace!: Targeting civilians in Colombia's internal armed conflict, (Index: AMR
23/023/2008).
13
For an analysis on the use of rape and other forms of sexual violence in the conflict, see Amnesty
International reports: Colombia: Hidden from justice. Impunity for conflict-related sexual violence,
(Index: AMR 23/031/2012); This is what we demand, justice!': Impunity for sexual violence against
women in Colombias armed conflict, (Index: AMR 23/018/2011); Colombia: Scarred bodies, hidden
crimes: Sexual violence against women in the armed conflict, (Index: AMR 23/040/2004).
14
Office of the Comptroller General, Office of the Human Rights Ombudsman and Office of the
Procurator General, Primer Informe al Congreso de la Repblica 2013-2014, Comisin de Seguimiento y
Monitoreo a la Implementacin de la Ley de Vctimas y Restitucin de Tierras, August 2014.
15
Somos Defensores, D de Defensa, Informe Anual 2013 Sistema de Informacin sobre Agresiones
contra Defensores y Defensoras de Derechos Humanos en Colombia SIADDHH, 2014.
16
17
Somos Defensores, Imagine, 2014.
18
Email received from ENS on 20 January 2014.
For examples of the use of the legal system to discredit human rights organizations see Amnesty
International, Efforts to discredit human rights lawyers collective puts them at risk of attack, (Index:
AMR 23/034/2011), and Concern over arrest of pregnant human rights defender in Colombia, 18
November 2010.
19
See, for example, Amnesty International, Return to hope: Forcibly displaced communities of Urab
and Medio Atrato region, (Index: AMR 23/023/2000) and Leave us in peace!: Targeting civilians in
Colombias internal armed conflict, (Index: AMR 23/023/2008).
20
Report of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights on the Situation of Human Rights
in Colombia, 7 January 2013, A/HRC/22/17/Add.3.
21
22
www.javiergiraldo.org/spip.php?article77
For an analysis of human rights abuses and violations of IHL by guerrilla groups see the Colombia
chapter of Amnesty Internationals annual reports (various years), as well as Leave us in peace!:
Targeting civilians in Colombia's internal armed conflict, (Index: AMR 23/023/2008), and the reports of
23
Index: AMR 23/031/2014

63
the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on the human rights situation in Colombia, available at:
www.hchr.org.co/documentoseinformes/informes/altocomisionado/informe2013EN.pdf
CODHES, El Desplazamiento Forzado y la Imperiosa Necesidad de la Paz, informe desplazamiento
2013, 2014.
24
Land Restitution Unit, La Poltica Pblica para la Proteccin y Restitucin de los Derechos
Territoriales de los Grupos tnicos: Antecedentes, Acciones y Perspectivas en el Escenario de los
Decretos con Fuerza de Ley para Grupos tnicos (4633 y 4635 de 2011), March 2013.
25
26
Constitutional Court Judicial Decision 005 of 2009.
27
Constitutional Court Judicial Decision 005 of 2009.
For a detailed analysis of the different mechanisms used to illegally acquire land see National
Commission of Reparation and Reconciliation, El Despojo de Tierras y Territorios, Aproximacin
Conceptual, July 2009.
28
29
Article 17.
30
Article 21.
31
Paragraph 8(e).
32
UN Doc. A/HRC/19/75, 24 Feb 2012.
33
Article 14(g).
34
Article 16(h).
35
Article 64.
UN Basic Principles and Guidelines on the Right to a Remedy and Reparation for Victims of Gross
Violations of International Human Rights Law and Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law
(2005).
36
37
Principle 28, 1.
38
Principle 30.
39
It should be noted that reparations can be applied even in situations of non-gross violations.
40
Paragraph 18.
41
Paragraph 19.
42
Principle 2, Paragraph 2.1.
43
Principle 4.
44
Principle 8.
45
Principle 10.
46
Principle 14
47
Principle 16.
48
Principle 17.
49
Article 11(1).
Index: AMR 23/031/2014
64
50

Paragraph 1.
It should be noted that the guidelines were criticized by the UN Special Rapporteur on the rights of
indigenous peoples for advising that land restitution for Indigenous People should be done where
possible in accordance with national legislation, and for not recognizing the right to free, prior and
informed consent, instead only requiring that indigenous peoples and other communities with
customary land tenure systems should not be forcibly evicted from their ancestral lands. See
http://unsr.jamesanaya.org/annual-reports/report-to-the-general-assembly-a-67-301-13-august-2012.
51
52
Section 15.3.
53
Section 15.6.
54
UNDP, Colombia rural, razones para la esperanza, Informe Nacional de Desarollo Humano, 2011.
55
UNDP, Colombia rural, razones para la esperanza, Informe Nacional de Desarollo Humano, 2011.
56
Desarollo rural y poltica agraria en Colombia, 1960-2012, INCODER, 2013.
57
Desarollo rural y poltica agraria en Colombia, 1960-2012, INCODER, 2013.
The abandonment of land is defined as the material neglect of that land because of violence, while
dispossession is defined as the act of arbitrarily depriving a person of their property or possessions.
58
For a detailed analysis of the illegal acquisition of land see National Centre of Historic Memory, La
Poltica de Reforma Agraria y Tierras en Colombia, 2009; Justicia y Paz, Tierras y Territorios en las
Versiones de los Paramilitares, 2012; and the Office of the Comptroller General, Espacios Vividos,
Territorios Despojados, 2014.
59
See Constitutional Court rulings T-025 of 2004 on internally displaced people, 004 of 2009 on
Indigenous Peoples, 005 of 2009 of Afro-descendant communities, and 092 of 2008 on women.
60
61
Article 1.
62
Article 19.
63
Article 10.
64
INCODER, Desarollo rural y poltica agraria en Colombia, 1960-2012, 2013.
65
Adopted via Decree 250 of 2005.
66
Decree 250, 5.3.4.2.
67
Judicial Decision (Auto) 008 of 2009 and Judicial Decision (Auto) 219 of 2011.
68
Judicial Decision (Auto) of 11 March 2014.
69
Law 1152.
70
Sentence C-175/09.
71
See: http://wp.presidencia.gov.co/SitePages/DocumentsPDF/punto1_20140924.pdf
See National Commission of Reparation and Reconciliation, El Despojo de Tierras y Territorios,

Aproximacin Conceptual, July 2009.
72
National Administrative Department of Statistics (DANE), 2011, quoted in INCODER, Desarollo rural y
poltica agrarian en Colombia, 1960-2012, 2013.
73
Index: AMR 23/031/2014

65
This view has been supported by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. In its judgment on the
case of the Saramaka People v. Suriname, on 28 November 2007, the Court stated that this Tribunal
declares that the members of the Saramaka people are to be considered a tribal community, and that the
Courts jurisprudence regarding indigenous peoples right to property is also applicable to tribal peoples
because both share distinct social, cultural, and economic characteristics, including a special
relationship with their ancestral territories, that require special measures under international human
rights law in order to guarantee their physical and cultural survival.
74
75
Article 7.
76
Article 63.
Land Restitution Unit, La Poltica Pblica para la Proteccin y Restitucin de los Derechos
Territoriales de los Grupos tnicos: Antecedentes, Acciones y Perspectivas en el Escenario de los
Decretos con Fuerza de Ley para Grupos tnicos (4633 y 4635 de 2011), March 2013.
77
78
Law 70, 27 August 1993, http://www.acnur.org/biblioteca/pdf/4404.pdf?view=1
79
National Administrative Department of Statistics (DANE), 2005.
80
81
National Administrative Department of Statistics (DANE), 2005.
82
83
Article 26.
84
Article 14.
85
Article 14.
86
Law 21 of 1991.
87
Constitutional Court Sentence T-955 of 2003.
88
Article 6.
89
For example, T-382 of 2006, C-030 of 2008 and Decree 3770 of 2008.
Full reparation includes restitution, compensation, rehabilitation, satisfaction and guarantees of nonrepetition.
90
91
Article 76.
92
Decree 0599 of 2012.
93
Land Restitution Unit, Informe Trimestral de Gestin a 30 de Junio de 2014, July 2014.
Owners are those who possess a land title; landholders have de facto possession of the land because
they have exploited it over time or even rented it from others, but do not have land titles; and occupants
are those who also have de facto possession, but of state-owned lands (baldis), and do not have land
titles.
94
95
96
Interview with the Office of the Human Rights Ombudsman, 23 July 2014.
Inter-American Court of Human Rights, Saramaka People v. Suriname, judgment of 28 November

2007.
97
Index: AMR 23/031/2014
66

98
For example, Law 70 of 1993.
99
Procurator General, Segundo Informe de Seguimiento y Monitoreo a la Implementacin de la Ley de
Vctimas y Restitucin de Tierras 2012-2013, August 2013.
100
101
102
Response from the Land Restitution Unit dated 1 August 2014 in response to a request for
information from Amnesty International.
103
Procurator General, Encuesta Nacional de Vctimas 2013, Presentacin Avance Corte Constitucional,
February 2014.
104
105
106
Restitution Sentence 2012-00084, Juez Primero Civil del Circuito Especializado en Restitucin de
Tierras de Villavicencio, 5 March 2013. See:
www.igac.gov.co/wps/wcm/connect/7b90798043c14792837997189c2a4f53/500013121001-201200084-00+Puerto+Gaitn+5+de+marzo.pdf?MOD=AJPERES
107
108
Interview with Nstor Ral Correa Henao, Magistrate of the Superior Council of the Judiciary, 21 July
2014.
109
110
111
112
Interview with the Land Restitution Unit, 22 July 2014.
113
Interview with restitution judge on 8 December 2013.
114
Various interviews with restitution judges in November and December 2013.
115
Forjando Futuros, Restictucin de Tierras Gota a Gota, avances y dificultades, March 2014.
116
Article 3.
117
Sentence C-781 of 2012.
118
Interview with the Land Restitution Unit, 6 December 2013.
119
Articles 3 and 75.
Index: AMR 23/031/2014

120
Article 207.
121
122
Land Restitution Unit, Informe anual de gestin, plan de accin 2013, January 2014.
67
123
124
125
Articles 2, 9 and 12.
See Amnesty International, Transforming pain into hope: Human rights defenders in the Americas,
(Index: AMR 01/006/2012).
126
127
UN Doc. A/HRC/RES/22/6.
128
UN Doc. A/RES/68/181.
129
UN Doc. A/HRC/25/55, paras 54-126.
130
Principle 28, 1.
131
Principle 10.1.
Somos Defensores, D de Defensa, Informe Anual 2013 Sistema de Informacin sobre Agresiones
contra Defensores y Defensoras de Derechos Humanos en Colombia SIADDHH, 2014.
132
133
Somos Defensores, Imagine, 2014.
Response from the Office of the Attorney General dated 25 August 2014 in response to a request for
134
135
Interview with IGAC, 24 July 2014.
136
Interview with restitution judges in November-December 2013.
137
Semana, 13 March 2013.
138
Article 2.
139
Interviews with human rights NGOs, July 2014.
140
Interview with the UNP, 24 July 2014.
Interviews with several human rights organizations and lawyers representing land claimants,
November-December 2013 and July 2014.
141
See Amnesty International, The Curvarad and Jiguamiand humanitarian zones: Communities in
resistance in Colombia, (Index: AMR 23/001/2009).
142
143
Interview with human rights organization working in the area, July 2014.
144
Interview with a womens human rights organization, July 2014.
145
Interview with human rights and peace NGOs, November-December 2013.
Index: AMR 23/031/2014
68

146
Articles 31 and 32.
147
Law 1719 of 18 June 2014.
148
Interviews with land claimants and human rights NGOs, November-December 2013, and July 2014.
149
Interviews with land claimants and other victims, November-December 2013.
150
Interview with the National Protection Unit (UNP), 24 July 2014.
151
Interview with the Human Rights Ombudsman, 5 December 2013.
152
153
Interview with the Human Rights Ombudsman, 5 December 2013.
154
Interview with the National Protection Unit (UNP), 10 December 2013.
155
Interview with the National Protection Unit (UNP), 10 December 2013.
156
Interview with the National Protection Unit (UNP), 24 July 2014.
157
Interview with the Office of the Comptroller General, 25 July 2014.
158
Interview with NGOs working on land restitution, November-December 2013 and July 2014.
159
Interviews with NGOs working on land restitution, November-December 2013 and July 2014.
160
Articles 9, 19 and 197.
161
162
163
Articles 129 and 105.
164
165
166
Land Restitution Unit, Informe Triemstral de Gestin a 30 Junio de 2014, July 2014.
167
Article 101.
168
Interview with INCODER, 24 July 2014.
169
Interview with the National Centre of Historic Memory, 22 July 2014.
170
Land Restitution Unit, Informe anual de gestin, Plan de Accin 2013, January 2014.
171
Land Restitution Unit, Informe Triemstral de Gestin a 30 Junio de 2014, July 2014.
172
Interview with the Office of the Procurator General, 22 July 2014.
173
Article 99.
174
Sentences C-715 and C-820 of 2012.
175
176
Index: AMR 23/031/2014

177
Interview with INCODER, 10 December 2013.
178
Article 206.
179
Land Restitution Unit, Informe Trimestral de Gestin a 30 de Julio de 2014, July 2014.
180
Principle 2.1.
181
Article 123.
69
182
183
184
Interview with the Office of the Procurator General, 22 July 2014.
Despite Law 1448 prohibiting the adjudication of land in forestry reserves, several restitution rulings
have granted land titles to claimants who received land from INCORA and which were subsequently
declared as forestry reserves.
185
186
Interview with Dejusticia, 23 July 2014.
CODHES, Informa. Boletn informativo de la Consultora para los Derechos Humanos y el

Desplazamiento, No. 75, 22 April 2009.
187
In this context, some victims may consider it preferable to enter into a transaction contract under the
terms of Law 1448. Law 1448 (Article 132) rewards victims who withdraw claims for reparation being
pursued through the courts by granting them a higher indemnity than they would if they continued with
court proceedings. Encouraging victims to withdraw lawsuits, albeit from civil courts, could help cover up
evidence of responsibility for human rights abuses and so potentially hamper criminal investigations and
help conceal illegally acquired assets, including lands. If Law 1448 is not extended, land claimants may
be unable to pursue their land restitution claims.
188
189
190
IGAC is the entity responsible for cartography in Colombia.
191
Interviews with lawyers representing land claimants, November-December 2013.
192
193
Interview with INCODER, 10 December 2013.
194
Interview with the lawyers involved in the case, 15 July 2014.
Procurator General, Primer informe de seguimiento y monitoreo a la implementacin de los decretos ley
de vctimas indgenas, negras, afrocolombianos, palenqueros, raizales y rrom, 2013.
195
196
Interview with restitution judges, November-December 2013.
197
Interview with Dejusticia, 23 July 2014.
Index: AMR 23/031/2014
70

198
See the section on the para-politics scandal in Amnesty International, Leave us in peace!:
Targeting civilians in Colombias internal armed conflict, (Index: AMR 23/023/2008).
199
200
201
Interview with the lawyers involved in the case, July 2014.
202
203
204
205
206
Interview with a regional director of the URT on 9 December 2013.
207
Articles 114-118.
Sisma Mujer and Asociacin Colectivo Mujeres al Derecho, Compilacin de los documentos
presentados por Sisma Mujer y Colemad en el marco del Proyecto promocin de la remocin de las
barreras para el acceso efectivo de las mujeres a los procesos de restitucin de tierras, 2014.
208
Sisma Mujer, Alternativas jurdicas para superar los obstculos que enfrentan mujeres, nias y
adolescentes para accede a la restitucin de tierras, 2013.
209
210
Interview with a Colombian womens organization, 21 July 2014.
211
212
213
Interview with PCN, 16 July 2014.
214
Interview with ONIC, 16 July 2014.
Procurator General, Primer informe de seguimiento y monitoreo a la implementacin de los decretos ley
de vctimas indgenas, negras, afrocolombianos, palenqueros, raizales y rrom, 2013.
215
216
217
218
219
See: http://restituciondetierras.gov.co/?action=article&id=1391
220
221
ONIC, Balance de Implementacin Decreto Ley 4633 de 2011, 9 April 2014.
Index: AMR 23/031/2014

71
National Planning Department (DNP), Plan Nacional de Desarrollo 20102014. Mas empleo, menos
pobreza y mas seguridad. Tomo I, 2011.
222
Law 1450 of 2011. Article 108. RESERVAS MINERAS ESTRATGICAS. La autoridad minera
determinar los minerales de inters estratgico para el pas, respecto de los cuales podr delimitar
reas especiales en reas que se encuentren libres, sobre las cuales no se recibirn nuevas propuestas ni
se suscribirn contratos de concesin minera. Lo anterior con el fin de que estas reas sean otorgadas en
contrato de concesin especial a travs de un proceso de seleccin objetiva, en el cual la autoridad
minera establecer en los trminos de referencia, las contraprestaciones econmicas mnimas distintas
de las regalas, que los interesados deben ofrecer.
223
Resolution No.45 of 20 June 2012, Resolution 18- 0241 of 24 February 2012. Both Resolutions
refer to the statement issued by the Prior Consultation Directorate of the Interior Ministry la Direccin
de Consulta Previa del Ministerio del Interior, mediante comunicacin radicada con el nmero OF1120622-DCP-2500 de fecha 20 de febrero de 2012, seal: La declaracin y limitacin (sic) de reas de
reserva minera estratgica art. 108 de la Ley del Plan Nacional de Desarrollo-, no debe ser consultada,
toda vez que se trata de una mera expectativa de que una mina en dicha zona pueda ser viable en su
explotacin, lo que implicara que debe seguirse un proceso de seleccin y acatar los mandatos del
Cdigo de Minas.[] Lo anterior, implica que el procedimiento a seguir en ese tipo de contratacin, una
vez surtido y agotado el proceso precontractual, debe ser consultado con las comunidades que segn la
ley tiene proteccin especial a la luz del Convencin 169 de la OIT, lo que implica que dicha obligacin
estar a cargo del concesionario como aquellas otras derivadas de ese tipo de actividades en la fase
contractual. See ABColombia, Giving it Away: The Consequences of an Unsustainable Mining Policy in
Colombia, November 2012.
224
UN Basic Principles and Guidelines on the Right to a Remedy and Reparation for Victims of Gross
Violations of International Human Rights Law and Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law.
225
226
Article 25.
Most responsible is a term adopted from the International Criminal Court (ICC). The ICC is not
designed to replace national justice systems but only steps in when these systems fail to investigate
international crimes. As an international mechanism intended to complement the workings of national
justice systems, as a matter of capacity and to encourage states to fully investigate international crimes
including serious human rights violations and abuses, the ICC seeks only to investigate the most
responsible people involved in a crime. However, international human rights standards still demand of
states action to bring all those responsible for serious human rights violations and abuses to justice.
227
228
Senate bill No. 85 of 2013.
See Amnesty International, Fair Trial Manual, Second Edition, (Index: POL 30/002/2014), 2014, pp.
223-224.
229
230
Index: AMR 23/031/2014
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A LAND TITLE IS NOT ENOUGH
ENSURING SUSTAINABLE LAND RESTITUTION

IN COLOMBIA
The violent struggle to control territory is one of the root causes of
Colombias 50-year-old armed conflict, which has resulted in almost 6
million people being forcibly displaced. This has had a devastating impact
on the millions of Colombians who rely on land for their survival, especially
Indigenous, Afro-descendant and peasant farmer communities.
Over the years, repeated attempts to address the vexed issue of land
have all failed. The Victims and Land Restitution Law (Law 1448), which
came into force in January 2012, is the latest effort to settle issues
around the formalization of land ownership, land restitution and, more
generally, of reparation for some of the victims of the conflict.
The success of the land restitution process will, however, largely depend
on whether the authorities, through Law 1448, are able to guarantee all
land claimants the right to an effective remedy, a right which lies at the
core of international human rights law.
This report examines whether the authorities can guarantee this right by
addressing weaknesses in Law 1448; stemming the threats against and
killings of land claimants and others involved in the process; ensuring that
those who return to their lands can sustain themselves economically; and
addressing impunity for those suspected of criminal responsibility in
forced displacement and associated human rights violations and abuses.
amnesty.org
Index: AMR 23/031/2014
November 2014

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A LAND TITLE

ENsuRINg sustAINAblE lANd

Amnesty International is a global movement of more than 3 million supporters,

First published in 2014 by

2. THE INTERNAL ARMED CONFLICT

Forced Displacement and the Illegal Acquisition of Land

Territorial Rights for Indigenous and Afro-Descendant Communities

4. LAW 1448 OF 2011: THE VICTIMS AND LAND RESTITUTION LAW

The Institutional Framework of Law 1448

Territorial Restitution for Indigenous and Afro-Descendant Communities

5. THE OBSTACLES TO SUSTAINABLE LAND RESTITUTION FOR ALL VICTIMS

Excluding Certain Categories of Victims

Lack of Security Guarantees and the Need for Comprehensive Protection

Failure to Ensure Sustainable Land Restitution

Lack of Institutional Co-ordination and Capacity

Ongoing Gender Discrimination

The Restitution of Indigenous and Afro-Descendant Territories

Failing to Guarantee the Right to Non-Repetition, Including Impunity

6. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

A LAND TITLE IS NOT ENOUGH:

Criminal gangs (bandas criminales)

Amnesty International November 2014

Index: AMR 23/031/2014

A LAND TITLE IS NOT ENOUGH:

Index: AMR 23/031/2014

Amnesty International November 2014

A LAND TITLE IS NOT ENOUGH:

Amnesty International November 2014

Index: AMR 23/031/2014

A LAND TITLE IS NOT ENOUGH:

Index: AMR 23/031/2014

Amnesty International November 2014

A LAND TITLE IS NOT ENOUGH:

Amnesty International November 2014

Index: AMR 23/031/2014

A LAND TITLE IS NOT ENOUGH:

Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia, FARC) are engaged in talks designed to put a

Index: AMR 23/031/2014

Amnesty International November 2014

A LAND TITLE IS NOT ENOUGH:

Amnesty International November 2014

Index: AMR 23/031/2014

A LAND TITLE IS NOT ENOUGH:

2. THE INTERNAL ARMED CONFLICT

Index: AMR 23/031/2014

Amnesty International November 2014

A LAND TITLE IS NOT ENOUGH:

THE PARTIES TO THE ARMED CONFLICT

Amnesty International November 2014

Index: AMR 23/031/2014

A LAND TITLE IS NOT ENOUGH:

FORCED DISPLACEMENT AND THE ILLEGAL ACQUISITION OF LAND

Index: AMR 23/031/2014

Amnesty International November 2014

A LAND TITLE IS NOT ENOUGH:

Amnesty International November 2014

Index: AMR 23/031/2014

A LAND TITLE IS NOT ENOUGH:

Index: AMR 23/031/2014

Amnesty International November 2014

A LAND TITLE IS NOT ENOUGH:

Amnesty International November 2014

Index: AMR 23/031/2014